Something I don't see talked about much with these but I'm experimenting with at home, you can connect two of these systems together with a short and cheap thunderbolt cable to get an incredibly high speed network connection between them for incredibly cheap. I'm running ubuntu and had to modprobe the thunderbolt-net driver but it was fairly plug and play otherwise. I'm getting iperf values of 18gbit/s for a ~$12cable
I use ethernet over thunderbolt to connect my Pc and Mac. The main problem is that the ethernet is reconigized as a PCIe device and thus no hot plugging on Linux. Unless the file is huge, I would do the transfer on WiFi instead of restarting my PC for thunderbolt
One of the advantages of the NUC having an external power supply is that they are designed to work with a huge range of power supplies. They don't even require 19V, which is very useful for those of us running embedded systems with DC power. NUCs will work perfectly fine with 12V battery power.
Quick correction - Intel DOES provide the appropriate plug for the power adapter if you get the right SKU. The SKU ending in 0 is the one without, 001 is US and 002 is EU. BTW, I have 2 - both of the "tall" variants so I could put in a 2.5 SATA drive too on i5 and the other i7.
@@softuniverse7771 Here you go: RNUC12WSHI50001 (i5 - 1240P CPU) - US cable; tall version; $482 - barebones RNUC12WSHI70001 (i7 - 1260P CPU) - US cable; tall version; $635 - barebones Both support 2280 NVMe, 2230 SATA, and 2.5" SATA drives. I've been running benchmarks on them and they both perform about the same - so I would opt for the i5 version for the price difference.
hey, that's really useful info, thanks! Do you know if the wifi signal is any good as I did not see any antena on the video. Also, is there any limitation to the capacity of the m.2 and the 2.5" ssd?
@@panosgb I honestly haven't tested the Wifi but it is supposed to come with Wifi 6E - I have only been using the 2.5 Gb ethernet. There is no specific size limitation listed - I have tested 1TB and 2TB drives.
I worked at a company that's service partner of a small /medium systems integrator here in Germany and we had a ton of NUCs at our customers, just with their logo on it. and servicing these is really easy. even replacing the whole mainboard took less than 30 minutes including testing that it then ran without any problems. 👍
@@ServeTheHomeVideo as desktop, mounted on the monitors most of the time. the company I worked for was specialised in doctor's office IT - so every minute counts sometimes 🤷
Great Review! My only gripe with the intel-made Nucs is they have a chronic case of tiny heatsinks, they tend to throttle or at least get super spicy if you try to run heavier workloads where they need to boost for more than a few seconds at a time
I agree, but we have a review of a slightly larger system coming up that uses less power, has a bigger heatsink, and I still wish it had a bigger heatsink.
Just swapped out some old iron for three of these. We don't run machine heavy VMs. Mostly Linux, and a Windows print server. So now our little NUC Proxmox cluster is running perfectly. Even rocking CEPH for some of the storage.
There are better performing Ryzen 6xxx small form factor systems available in the market now which outperform the 12th gen NUC Pros. Wish I waited to get one of them instead.
As many of the commenters have mentioned, I really wish Intel made the heatsink taller. A 1cm increase would make a WORLD of difference for thermals. I ended up hacking my 7200u NUC apart so I could hot-rod a larger cooler onto it.
as a TMM (sort of) virtualization host these are pretty fantastic. the biggest draw for me is the lack of limitation in networking now that you have 40Gbps at your disposal!
I tried nuc pn50 in allmetal fanless akasa newton a50 case. Till up to 25w is nice, everything cold. Problem is 3D gaming. If watts go up to 40w temperatures climb so high to 80-90C, specially in summer. Its like forge and my ssd also over 70C. Adding one fan with slow motion on top solve it to go down about 25-30C. In my opinion fanless case can hold to 15w-25w, depend on size. But add one fan is so effective to not sence do monster pasives.
One thing I'd be kinda curious about in the power draw&noise tests (with geekench et al.) is how it performs if one were to turn off the Turbo feature*? (something I generally do on systems - since I don't consider the extra watt-per-performance beyond the base clock to be worth it) (* it is a bios option, but also - in linux at least - one can toggle this on-the-fly (assuming the bios has it set to allow, so turning it off in a boot-script is very handy)) But overall, great overview with lots of details.
I would love to see a powerbrick, with the same size and shape like the NUC it selft, so that you can stack them both together (put the powerbrick under up on the NUC - perhaps with some magents?) I would also love to have some kind of "Docking Station" with the same size of Case! One Thunderbold cable, one ore two NVMe inside an some more USB (2-3x USB 2.0, and like 4-7 USB 3.x Ports). a Displayport, and maybe another 1 GBit (?) NIC
The power supply is overkill on purpose. NUC doesn't require that big of power supply to run. Big power supply is in case you plug in super power hungry thunderbolt devices. If you never going to run crazy power hungry thunderbolt devices, you can use much smaller power supply.
These are perfect for our computer lab for primary kids... Only issue is a devices that go into sleep and don't resume without pulling out the power connector... very difficult if you are a teacher that needs all computers workout when you enter the room
You can now buy GaN 120 W USB C charger and buy the converter head from USB C to DC 2.5mm or 3.5mm.. very small and compact set. GaN 120W charge can output 20V 6A. perfect for mini pc or laptop
I purchased a NUC12WSHi7 in September and was overall disappointed with my experience. The hardware is solid when it functions properly, however, the support for these NUCs is inadequate. My first unit had a hardware issue with the USB port, and my Samsung 49-inch monitor was not compatible until I upgraded the firmware. However, I encountered a problem upgrading the computer's firmware as I couldn't connect a monitor. Additionally, the fan would whizz quite loud during Windows indexing, causing high noise. In my personal opinion, I found Windows 10 with this NUC to be slow and not much faster than my 2015 computer at times. Overall, the lack of proper support and various technical difficulties detracted from my experience with the NUC. If we compare the experience with a Apple, it is night and day. Thanx
My first TWO NUC Pro 12's (i5) had a fault on the rear USB-C ports. Amazingly bad! I also feel let down. My third one also exhibits the same symptoms but at this point what am I going to do, return it for a replacement that will have the exact same issue? Too late for a refund now!
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Hi Patrick, I decided against upgrading to a 2.5Gbit network as my home network already has a 1Gbit network with a switch that only supports 1Gbit. My approach to technology has changed, I now prioritize practical needs over the latest features. I recently renovated my home and installed cat6 cables throughout, which provide sufficient bandwidth. I think SimplyNuc offers 2.5Gbit expansion kit when you order NUC12. Keen to know what you use for your home network? Assume you have 2.5Gbit deployed? I guess it works best when you have a NAS and transfer files to and from the NAS to your computer and vice versa.
@@joshpayne4015 I had a major issue with my USB thunderbolts, I use them to connect my monitors 2x and support was absolut rubbish, eventually the NUC was replaced and it works much better, but I don't now if this is windows or hardware and intel implementation.
I purchased one of these last week and they are awesome. Could you recommend a good usb c to 2.5GbE adapter to go with these. I plan to use it for a vmware home-lab.
We might, but we have so many servers and lots of networking gear to review for the main site. Usually we just do these videos on a few of the items we review each month.
can we talk about the irony of these nuc's getting bigger? the first ones were so slim I could slap them behind a monitor and no one would even notice.
6:45 IT would be interesting to see what would happen if you used a shipping tube to make a chimney on top of the unit to see how much extra cooling that airflow provides, on my Noctua C14S i was able to cool a 3050X to just shy of 60w passively using a 3 ft long square cardboard box and there was a nice noticeable airflow, not quite enough to hold up a sheet of paper, but maybe some tissue paper
In win B1 comes without a power cable for the included PSU. it make it cheaper and multi compatible as you said. I got the In-win for £79 new, which is good as they are £140 here in UK as no importer in UK so normally after shipping the are very expensive. A power cable could add £10-20 for added weigh on import so I get the sense of no power cable more OEM's sold do the same. Not like you can't get power cable of Amazon.
How's the wifi connectivity performance? Any drop in speed or disconnections noticed? I'd like to replace my existing Beelink J45 mini pc with J4205 Processor since it is giving only 10-15 Mbps on my 100 Mbps connection.
Hi Patrick, do you have any thoughts on the reported issues with the i226-V NIC? The 225 was known to have problems, and mostly Windows users are reporting them with 226. Have you seen any in your testing?
Hi, I don't have many ideas about the 2 thunderbolt ports, but are they internal connected? If I plug a eGPU on one of them , a thunderbolt port monitor on the other, can the eGPU drive the monitor? Thank you!
Hi, will work Intel Hyper AV1 video encoding (Intel Quick Sync use integrated GPU and dedicated Arc A770 GPU for encoding together) there with Intel Arc A770 16GB in Razer Core X Chroma via Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) or there will be AV1 Encoding only on external Intel Arc A770 16GB like from my laptop HP EliteBook 840 G7, please? I thank you very much for your answer in advance.
The next Beelink GTR6 video shows that exact use case, we did not do that here since the Iris Xe is not the best gaming iGPU solution. The video encode/ decode is very good on Alder Lake, though.
Really the barebones is usually in the $600-700 range, so $1000 would be a high-end config. Compared to $200-500, Alder Lake is a big jump in performance. You also get the newer iGPU with AV1 decode that will matter a lot more in the future. There is still room for less expensive, but these new ones are reasonable for what they offer.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Can you use the barebones as is? No? Then the $1k is closer to reality. (and is the lowest price on the link in Description that popped up for me.) Is the real world performance that much better? Use case: Server? Nope. Use case Desktop? Maybe. I can build with a GPU way under, AND your name is SERVE The HOME. Did you try running serious games on it? If so, show those comparisons. As a server, price/value isn't there IMO. Neither as a media center or as a desktop.
Well "Home" is the /home directory in Linux. The STH main site is the largest server storage and networking review website out there (~10x this small TH-cam channel.) We just started doing these mini PCs in 2020 when the pandemic made them awesome for homelabs so we do not do gaming. If you are in Europe or other places with expensive power, the power savings versus a similarly performing/ priced used 1P E5 V4, Skylake/ Cascade Lake server will pay itself back very quickly.
I'd love to see a marketplace comparison for what sort of fanless systems are out there, and in particular how the Intel options compare the AMD options. I've had my eye on fanless for a while so the META box is very interesting to me. I'll be curious to see what the release version ends up being compared to older 11th or 10th-gen fanless devices.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Understood. I definitely realize that it's a specialized product with a limited market. I wonder if it would be useful to have a "fanless" STH playlist to make the content easier to access (as opposed to having to go through the larger amount of mini PC content and sort out manually which systems are fanless). Just a thought.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Yes, some assembly required :) Another thing I miss with these NUCs is 2x nvme drive option. For example, Asus PN53 has it, plus 2.5" ssd. Which makes it possible to get rid of dedicated small NAS and have everything in one small box. Super neat.
I got an AMD 3000 series Beelink last year. I had to travel for work and wanted a desktop PC for personal use, without lugging my full desktop. It could run more games than I expected. But also was terribly slow in other ways, and felt cheap. Things like the WiFi signal strength being awful. I vaguely remember other issues I had maybe speed, disk access (even with an SSD) and maybe USB ports being too weak to power multiple peripherals. It was a while ago, but the issues were enough that I will be avoiding Beelink in the future. However, if you just need a simple desktop PC for office work and media, it worked fine.
We we have the newer GTR6 version with RDNA 2 graphics coming. The video is recorded, Alex is editing it today. That was better from a gaming perspective just because of the updated iGPU.
I'm disappointed with my Intel NUC 12 Pro i5 (NUC12WSHi5). I'm on my third one now. All of them have difficulties with the rear Thunderbolt 4 (USB4) USB-C ports. Just using them with USB 3.2 Gen2 devices via the rear USB-C ports causes over-current errors in Windows and random disconnects and failure to register/recognize the connected hardware. This is regardless of the connected device, and regardless of the USB cable used. I'm not even talking about using Thunderbolt here, just regular old USB 3.x devices via the USB-C ports! How terrible! And the CPU cooling fan ramps up from quiet to annoying at the slightest usage.
Might be worth trying setting some different fan thermal curves in the CMOS/BIOS setup. I was reading the other day about people doing this on the NUC8 units as well.
100% agree. . 1Gbe has been a thing for far, far too long. I'm not sure why they didn't just go with 5Gbe or why that's so rare. For me, even 2.5Gbe is too slow, but the 10 stuff is too expensive right now.
Got 2 of the 1240p tall models and had big problems with wifi speed. Also changing the wifi-card did not chance anything, so I think the pc has problems with the antenna design.
Anyone here seen more mini PCs like the HX90X or NucXi9 from Minisforum, or the similar ones from Zotac? I.e. mini PCs with laptop CPUs but also laptop GPUs in a small form factor? Game laptops, without keyboard and screen, tucked in small cases... Seems most of these minis are based on APUs and even the upcoming Phoenix laptop APUs from AMD seem to still lack in GPU power, so having a discrete GPU chip is nice. Yes, not really server stuff, but hey, maybe someone here seen one.
So, if you (me) had some old heat sinks that you could plop on this chip, and the h/s itself was say 4x the size of the chip, so it exceeds the chip's edges, is there any advantage or disadvantages to that? Assume there is physical room for the h/s.
@@StripeyType Thanks. That's how I looked at it. Seems to me the heat would continue through the h/s, even at the edges where it's not in direct contact. Like the chip has a cute little top hat. #heathat
Similar performance to the 5800U system you reviewed a week or two ago but much much worse power consumption and likely way more money too. Very glad I bought the Topton 5800U system you reviewed the other week. I like you review of the Aliexpress systems. I also bought the J4125 system you recommended a year or so ago as well. Please keep the reviews of the Aliexpres stuff coming. I'll likely buy the 2.5Gb/s switch you recommended as well.
If you were to run Cinebench for 10 minutes straight, would this system thermal throttle itself? What would the highest temperature that you would see on this?
I'm basically just waiting for a fanless box that can run Jellyfin in a web browser and display 4k without stutters and doesn't cost 600 bucks. I have an old 4th gen i5 in an Akasa Euler case that just doesn't manage it quite well enough... But spending so much cash on a one trick pony is painful...
I was looking at the ASUS PN51. They only wanted to sell lame versions. I wanted a bare-bones version so I could max out the RAM and use a non-tiny SSD. ASUS was absolutely no help, just PR flack. The QVL list had bogus entries. Apparently, ASUS only wants mass market sales, not individuals.
Not to detail the video but some of these companies can't even upgrade the 100mb lan on tvs doubt they'd wanna spend the 2¢ to get better lan on a produyid they can just salvage a free 100mb port some something else 🤣
Something I don't see talked about much with these but I'm experimenting with at home, you can connect two of these systems together with a short and cheap thunderbolt cable to get an incredibly high speed network connection between them for incredibly cheap. I'm running ubuntu and had to modprobe the thunderbolt-net driver but it was fairly plug and play otherwise. I'm getting iperf values of 18gbit/s for a ~$12cable
Something like that got cut from the video actually. We connected this to a QNAP via TB th-cam.com/video/dZRdpjYxizo/w-d-xo.html
I use ethernet over thunderbolt to connect my Pc and Mac. The main problem is that the ethernet is reconigized as a PCIe device and thus no hot plugging on Linux. Unless the file is huge, I would do the transfer on WiFi instead of restarting my PC for thunderbolt
⭐️
One of the advantages of the NUC having an external power supply is that they are designed to work with a huge range of power supplies. They don't even require 19V, which is very useful for those of us running embedded systems with DC power. NUCs will work perfectly fine with 12V battery power.
This. And even when you are powering them from AC, you have far more choice if your PSU fails and you have to buy a new one.
Quick correction - Intel DOES provide the appropriate plug for the power adapter if you get the right SKU. The SKU ending in 0 is the one without, 001 is US and 002 is EU.
BTW, I have 2 - both of the "tall" variants so I could put in a 2.5 SATA drive too on i5 and the other i7.
what is the sku on that? does it take a 15,mm drive?
@@softuniverse7771 Here you go:
RNUC12WSHI50001 (i5 - 1240P CPU) - US cable; tall version; $482 - barebones
RNUC12WSHI70001 (i7 - 1260P CPU) - US cable; tall version; $635 - barebones
Both support 2280 NVMe, 2230 SATA, and 2.5" SATA drives. I've been running benchmarks on them and they both perform about the same - so I would opt for the i5 version for the price difference.
hey, that's really useful info, thanks! Do you know if the wifi signal is any good as I did not see any antena on the video. Also, is there any limitation to the capacity of the m.2 and the 2.5" ssd?
@@panosgb I honestly haven't tested the Wifi but it is supposed to come with Wifi 6E - I have only been using the 2.5 Gb ethernet. There is no specific size limitation listed - I have tested 1TB and 2TB drives.
@@JasonTaylor-po5xc thank you very much for the information 🙂
I worked at a company that's service partner of a small /medium systems integrator here in Germany and we had a ton of NUCs at our customers, just with their logo on it.
and servicing these is really easy. even replacing the whole mainboard took less than 30 minutes including testing that it then ran without any problems. 👍
Were these being used as desktops or something else?
@@ServeTheHomeVideo as desktop, mounted on the monitors most of the time. the company I worked for was specialised in doctor's office IT - so every minute counts sometimes 🤷
Great Review! My only gripe with the intel-made Nucs is they have a chronic case of tiny heatsinks, they tend to throttle or at least get super spicy if you try to run heavier workloads where they need to boost for more than a few seconds at a time
I agree, but we have a review of a slightly larger system coming up that uses less power, has a bigger heatsink, and I still wish it had a bigger heatsink.
Dominican? Haha
Just want to thank you Patrick. I keep watching your videos and they are very entertaining and informative.
Glad you like them!
Soooo love the part that the power brick isn't integrated.
Just swapped out some old iron for three of these. We don't run machine heavy VMs. Mostly Linux, and a Windows print server. So now our little NUC Proxmox cluster is running perfectly.
Even rocking CEPH for some of the storage.
Nice!!!
When I saw the $$$price, I decided IDONT like it
And now you know why Intel's stock is in the crapper. Nuc are good for certain cases but economically they aren't a good value for a lot of people
Isn't that always the case? 🤣
There are better performing Ryzen 6xxx small form factor systems available in the market now which outperform the 12th gen NUC Pros. Wish I waited to get one of them instead.
@@joshpayne4015 been looking for this what's that called?
@@joshpayne4015 and what are they called?
As many of the commenters have mentioned, I really wish Intel made the heatsink taller. A 1cm increase would make a WORLD of difference for thermals. I ended up hacking my 7200u NUC apart so I could hot-rod a larger cooler onto it.
I love Intel NUC due to the thunderbolt ports for attached NVMe m.2 external storage drives. Great Plex Server also.
as a TMM (sort of) virtualization host these are pretty fantastic. the biggest draw for me is the lack of limitation in networking now that you have 40Gbps at your disposal!
Thanks for all the work on, very helpful!
I tried nuc pn50 in allmetal fanless akasa newton a50 case. Till up to 25w is nice, everything cold. Problem is 3D gaming. If watts go up to 40w temperatures climb so high to 80-90C, specially in summer. Its like forge and my ssd also over 70C. Adding one fan with slow motion on top solve it to go down about 25-30C. In my opinion fanless case can hold to 15w-25w, depend on size. But add one fan is so effective to not sence do monster pasives.
One thing I'd be kinda curious about in the power draw&noise tests (with geekench et al.) is how it performs if one were to turn off the Turbo feature*? (something I generally do on systems - since I don't consider the extra watt-per-performance beyond the base clock to be worth it)
(* it is a bios option, but also - in linux at least - one can toggle this on-the-fly (assuming the bios has it set to allow, so turning it off in a boot-script is very handy))
But overall, great overview with lots of details.
I would love to see a powerbrick, with the same size and shape like the NUC it selft, so that you can stack them both together (put the powerbrick under up on the NUC - perhaps with some magents?)
I would also love to have some kind of "Docking Station" with the same size of Case!
One Thunderbold cable, one ore two NVMe inside an some more USB (2-3x USB 2.0, and like 4-7 USB 3.x Ports). a Displayport, and maybe another 1 GBit (?) NIC
The MAC prefix on the lable, 48:21:0b, is for Pegatron Corporation, so looks like ASrock or one of the other subsidiaries makes these.
Interesting since ASRock has its own NUC motherboards as well (we did the ASRock version of this with two 2.5GbE ports.)
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Pegatron is the mother company of ASRock. They are in the same corporation.
Very cool. With the current scalper prices of pi's, the 1L and under hold a lot more appeal for me. Particularly if you can get a super low power one.
The power supply is overkill on purpose. NUC doesn't require that big of power supply to run. Big power supply is in case you plug in super power hungry thunderbolt devices.
If you never going to run crazy power hungry thunderbolt devices, you can use much smaller power supply.
These are perfect for our computer lab for primary kids... Only issue is a devices that go into sleep and don't resume without pulling out the power connector... very difficult if you are a teacher that needs all computers workout when you enter the room
You can now buy GaN 120 W USB C charger and buy the converter head from USB C to DC 2.5mm or 3.5mm.. very small and compact set.
GaN 120W charge can output 20V 6A. perfect for mini pc or laptop
The type of mini pci-e/m.2/solt should be die subbed on the slot at a minimum if not molded in.
I have an old 4790k pc and I’m thinking better to sell the mobo+cpu+ram combo and use something like this if I want an x86 server
if you don't need pcie slots for cards, yeah
I purchased a NUC12WSHi7 in September and was overall disappointed with my experience. The hardware is solid when it functions properly, however, the support for these NUCs is inadequate. My first unit had a hardware issue with the USB port, and my Samsung 49-inch monitor was not compatible until I upgraded the firmware. However, I encountered a problem upgrading the computer's firmware as I couldn't connect a monitor. Additionally, the fan would whizz quite loud during Windows indexing, causing high noise. In my personal opinion, I found Windows 10 with this NUC to be slow and not much faster than my 2015 computer at times. Overall, the lack of proper support and various technical difficulties detracted from my experience with the NUC.
If we compare the experience with a Apple, it is night and day.
Thanx
That NUC12WSHi7 looks so cool though! Did you get the second 2.5GbE option? I want to find one of those so I can try that expansion module.
My first TWO NUC Pro 12's (i5) had a fault on the rear USB-C ports. Amazingly bad! I also feel let down. My third one also exhibits the same symptoms but at this point what am I going to do, return it for a replacement that will have the exact same issue? Too late for a refund now!
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Hi Patrick, I decided against upgrading to a 2.5Gbit network as my home network already has a 1Gbit network with a switch that only supports 1Gbit.
My approach to technology has changed, I now prioritize practical needs over the latest features. I recently renovated my home and installed cat6 cables throughout, which provide sufficient bandwidth.
I think SimplyNuc offers 2.5Gbit expansion kit when you order NUC12.
Keen to know what you use for your home network? Assume you have 2.5Gbit deployed? I guess it works best when you have a NAS and transfer files to and from the NAS to your computer and vice versa.
@@joshpayne4015 I had a major issue with my USB thunderbolts, I use them to connect my monitors 2x and support was absolut rubbish, eventually the NUC was replaced and it works much better, but I don't now if this is windows or hardware and intel implementation.
Really a strong Mini Box,I like your professional review videos!
Just wish it had dual NIC. I also think 10g Multigig ports should be also default as well.
I purchased one of these last week and they are awesome. Could you recommend a good usb c to 2.5GbE adapter to go with these. I plan to use it for a vmware home-lab.
Don’t you have an opportunity to review other passive cooling solutions for the NUC 12? Akasa seems to have some…
We might, but we have so many servers and lots of networking gear to review for the main site. Usually we just do these videos on a few of the items we review each month.
One thought why cant they be powered with usb c as it should have enough power and the power adapters for a 100/150 watts are much smaller.
Take the fanless industrial nuc and mount a 10cm low rpm fan on top
What about DDR5? Nuc does not support this memory?
I'd prefer to see a DP with an HDMI adapter in the box
can we talk about the irony of these nuc's getting bigger? the first ones were so slim I could slap them behind a monitor and no one would even notice.
Hey, great presentation skills, thanks for the vid!
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.
6:45 IT would be interesting to see what would happen if you used a shipping tube to make a chimney on top of the unit to see how much extra cooling that airflow provides, on my Noctua C14S i was able to cool a 3050X to just shy of 60w passively using a 3 ft long square cardboard box and there was a nice noticeable airflow, not quite enough to hold up a sheet of paper, but maybe some tissue paper
In win B1 comes without a power cable for the included PSU. it make it cheaper and multi compatible as you said. I got the In-win for £79 new, which is good as they are £140 here in UK as no importer in UK so normally after shipping the are very expensive. A power cable could add £10-20 for added weigh on import so I get the sense of no power cable more OEM's sold do the same. Not like you can't get power cable of Amazon.
How does the NUC compare with the Apple Mini and Studio (max)?
I read the NUC 12 and 13 series have a replaceable CPU instead of the soldered CPU they used for years, does anyone know if this is true?
These do not. Here is the NUC 13 Pro as well th-cam.com/video/nsT2s40s_3k/w-d-xo.html
How's the wifi connectivity performance? Any drop in speed or disconnections noticed? I'd like to replace my existing Beelink J45 mini pc with J4205 Processor since it is giving only 10-15 Mbps on my 100 Mbps connection.
Have You tried to mount the passively cooled one vertically, I think it will have benefit of natural airflow and will be harder to thermal throttle
what happen to the review of that Nvidia small compute unit(NUC thingy) that you said you would review like 2-3 months ago???
I have not been a fan of either recording I did for it. I need to do it for a third time.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo ic ic... just letting you know that someone(me lol) is still waiting to see that review :)
Do any of these mini’s come with a processor that has Quick Sync? Looking for my Plex server, thanks.
Most Intel CPUs with iGPUs these days have Quick Sync, so this has it.
Can we power the NUC via the USB C port?
Hi Patrick, do you have any thoughts on the reported issues with the i226-V NIC? The 225 was known to have problems, and mostly Windows users are reporting them with 226. Have you seen any in your testing?
We have had several of the i226 NICs running 24x7, no drops, but not under Windows and not using those consumer desktop motherboards
Hi, I don't have many ideas about the 2 thunderbolt ports, but are they internal connected? If I plug a eGPU on one of them , a thunderbolt port monitor on the other, can the eGPU drive the monitor? Thank you!
Is the M2 SSD slot NVMe or SATA?
Hi, will work Intel Hyper AV1 video encoding (Intel Quick Sync use integrated GPU and dedicated Arc A770 GPU for encoding together) there with Intel Arc A770 16GB in Razer Core X Chroma via Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) or there will be AV1 Encoding only on external Intel Arc A770 16GB like from my laptop HP EliteBook 840 G7, please?
I thank you very much for your answer in advance.
is this powerful enough to run OBS capturing gameplay from a gaming PC?
The next Beelink GTR6 video shows that exact use case, we did not do that here since the Iris Xe is not the best gaming iGPU solution. The video encode/ decode is very good on Alder Lake, though.
The WiFi on the fanless would be so much more effective if those stubbies could peer over Copper Mountain.
I think there are many folks that will see this and immediately think about how big of an antenna array they can attach :-)
$1000? Why? What is the advantage over a TFF at 1/5th the cost? Or even 1/2 the cost?
Really the barebones is usually in the $600-700 range, so $1000 would be a high-end config. Compared to $200-500, Alder Lake is a big jump in performance. You also get the newer iGPU with AV1 decode that will matter a lot more in the future. There is still room for less expensive, but these new ones are reasonable for what they offer.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Can you use the barebones as is? No? Then the $1k is closer to reality. (and is the lowest price on the link in Description that popped up for me.) Is the real world performance that much better? Use case: Server? Nope. Use case Desktop? Maybe. I can build with a GPU way under, AND your name is SERVE The HOME. Did you try running serious games on it? If so, show those comparisons. As a server, price/value isn't there IMO. Neither as a media center or as a desktop.
Well "Home" is the /home directory in Linux. The STH main site is the largest server storage and networking review website out there (~10x this small TH-cam channel.) We just started doing these mini PCs in 2020 when the pandemic made them awesome for homelabs so we do not do gaming. If you are in Europe or other places with expensive power, the power savings versus a similarly performing/ priced used 1P E5 V4, Skylake/ Cascade Lake server will pay itself back very quickly.
I'd love to see a marketplace comparison for what sort of fanless systems are out there, and in particular how the Intel options compare the AMD options. I've had my eye on fanless for a while so the META box is very interesting to me. I'll be curious to see what the release version ends up being compared to older 11th or 10th-gen fanless devices.
The challenge is that on the STH main site we probably review 20-30 fanless systems per year and that is a small portion of the market.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Understood. I definitely realize that it's a specialized product with a limited market. I wonder if it would be useful to have a "fanless" STH playlist to make the content easier to access (as opposed to having to go through the larger amount of mini PC content and sort out manually which systems are fanless). Just a thought.
Good idea. I might have missed some, but here you go th-cam.com/play/PLC53fzn9608DAWXgyxVFys98Z3DtNMqSI.html
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Awesome, thanks so much
Any chance of a nuc with ecc support?
Only NUC pro are missing the power plug.
The consumer version have it
can it run with external GPU?
These things are way too loud. Only usable with 3rd party case such as Akasa Turing WS.
Well the fanless one we showed was silent, but also slower. $170 for the Akasa plus the time to transfer it is a turn-off for many as well.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Yes, some assembly required :)
Another thing I miss with these NUCs is 2x nvme drive option. For example, Asus PN53 has it, plus 2.5" ssd. Which makes it possible to get rid of dedicated small NAS and have everything in one small box. Super neat.
I got an AMD 3000 series Beelink last year. I had to travel for work and wanted a desktop PC for personal use, without lugging my full desktop.
It could run more games than I expected. But also was terribly slow in other ways, and felt cheap. Things like the WiFi signal strength being awful. I vaguely remember other issues I had maybe speed, disk access (even with an SSD) and maybe USB ports being too weak to power multiple peripherals. It was a while ago, but the issues were enough that I will be avoiding Beelink in the future.
However, if you just need a simple desktop PC for office work and media, it worked fine.
We we have the newer GTR6 version with RDNA 2 graphics coming. The video is recorded, Alex is editing it today. That was better from a gaming perspective just because of the updated iGPU.
don’t they have nuc 13’s out?
They have the BIG ones with room for PCIe GPUs and stuff. 12th gen -> 13th gen is a smaller upgrade. Meteor Lake will be the big refresh
I'm disappointed with my Intel NUC 12 Pro i5 (NUC12WSHi5). I'm on my third one now. All of them have difficulties with the rear Thunderbolt 4 (USB4) USB-C ports. Just using them with USB 3.2 Gen2 devices via the rear USB-C ports causes over-current errors in Windows and random disconnects and failure to register/recognize the connected hardware. This is regardless of the connected device, and regardless of the USB cable used. I'm not even talking about using Thunderbolt here, just regular old USB 3.x devices via the USB-C ports! How terrible!
And the CPU cooling fan ramps up from quiet to annoying at the slightest usage.
Might be worth trying setting some different fan thermal curves in the CMOS/BIOS setup. I was reading the other day about people doing this on the NUC8 units as well.
100% agree. . 1Gbe has been a thing for far, far too long. I'm not sure why they didn't just go with 5Gbe or why that's so rare. For me, even 2.5Gbe is too slow, but the 10 stuff is too expensive right now.
ECC RAM?
Got 2 of the 1240p tall models and had big problems with wifi speed. Also changing the wifi-card did not chance anything, so I think the pc has problems with the antenna design.
Anyone here seen more mini PCs like the HX90X or NucXi9 from Minisforum, or the similar ones from Zotac? I.e. mini PCs with laptop CPUs but also laptop GPUs in a small form factor? Game laptops, without keyboard and screen, tucked in small cases... Seems most of these minis are based on APUs and even the upcoming Phoenix laptop APUs from AMD seem to still lack in GPU power, so having a discrete GPU chip is nice. Yes, not really server stuff, but hey, maybe someone here seen one.
If you can tell me what or where a Wall Street Canyon is I will be majorly impressed
I thought it was outside of Barstow in SoCal?
@@ServeTheHomeVideo I am majorly impressed
So, if you (me) had some old heat sinks that you could plop on this chip, and the h/s itself was say 4x the size of the chip, so it exceeds the chip's edges, is there any advantage or disadvantages to that? Assume there is physical room for the h/s.
thermal mass is thermal mass all day long.
@@StripeyType Thanks. That's how I looked at it. Seems to me the heat would continue through the h/s, even at the edges where it's not in direct contact. Like the chip has a cute little top hat. #heathat
Similar performance to the 5800U system you reviewed a week or two ago but much much worse power consumption and likely way more money too. Very glad I bought the Topton 5800U system you reviewed the other week. I like you review of the Aliexpress systems. I also bought the J4125 system you recommended a year or so ago as well. Please keep the reviews of the Aliexpres stuff coming. I'll likely buy the 2.5Gb/s switch you recommended as well.
Thanks!
Wow thank you!
drinking game trigger: "we'll talk about that later"
Intel has announced that it will discontinue making Next Units of Computing (NUCs).
Yes. I broke the story this week: www.servethehome.com/intel-exiting-the-pc-business-as-it-stops-investment-in-the-intel-nuc/
If you were to run Cinebench for 10 minutes straight, would this system thermal throttle itself? What would the highest temperature that you would see on this?
What is that icon on 2ND USB port?
It means "broken", lol, as mine is.
I'm basically just waiting for a fanless box that can run Jellyfin in a web browser and display 4k without stutters and doesn't cost 600 bucks.
I have an old 4th gen i5 in an Akasa Euler case that just doesn't manage it quite well enough... But spending so much cash on a one trick pony is painful...
The META one looks like it's a pre-production sample, the port alignment is pretty far off for it to possibly be a ready for retail unit.
5:55 That doesn't sound fun, that sounds annoying. Thanks for the heads up if I ever buy a NUC though.
Thunderbolt 4 cables are $180 - sic !!!
The 2000s called and want their USB-A ports back.
personally, i have not found any great performance boost from my nuc10i7.
DisplayPort "speaks" HDMI, it's a simple cable.
Hmmm, having one of those nucs in my livingroom would be like telling my amazon device "Echo play fan". No thanks.
I was looking at the ASUS PN51. They only wanted to sell lame versions. I wanted a bare-bones version so I could max out the RAM and use a non-tiny SSD. ASUS was absolutely no help, just PR flack. The QVL list had bogus entries. Apparently, ASUS only wants mass market sales, not individuals.
the wall connector is included in EU atleast
Only with some SKUs. Generally the SKU lacking the power cord is the one you can see on retailer websites (at least here in Germany)
Intel not selling me a power cord for a higher price is"fun"???
He seems to be an Intel apologist mostly by down-playing all the little issues which once you add them up turn this NUC into a bit of a turd.
Very nice review !
But i don't understand why would you need more than 1 Gbit Ethernet port on NUC ?
Use it as a router such as pfsense.
I can get a Dell Vostro maxed out for 1000$ (this proc + battery, lcd and keyboard), I have no idea who buys NUCs.
You BOUGHT Windows licenses!?! Who does that?
Wall Street Canyon - the precipitous drop of intel profits in 2022-2023?
looks like a chromebox… I want to see risc5 put up a challenge to arm. x86 is too busted now……….
Wall Street Canyon. Isn't that what you get when the market crashes?
OMG.. 1260P CPU Performance so sad.. T_T
no gpu then whats point
ME first !!! Watching !
Not to detail the video but some of these companies can't even upgrade the 100mb lan on tvs doubt they'd wanna spend the 2¢ to get better lan on a produyid they can just salvage a free 100mb port some something else 🤣
I wish my father ditches his old ass desktop pc and replace it with one of these things. Much more compact and much more energy efficient
For $849.00??? Yeah F**k that 💩!!! The whole point of these minis is AFFORDABLE and this one defeats the concept.
its Intel and Apple who made thunderbolt. its a co design from birth companies
Top :D
😀👍🏾
Single nic…. Wack
3rd
we can say we ain't a FAN of the meta ver hahah
Oh nice!
Dude at this point just shave your head. the 2 or 3 stands going across is not working bruh