A couple of week again, Intel introduced it was exiting the NUC (Subsequent Unit of Computing) enterprise. I used to be upset to listen to that, as I’ve lengthy held a gentle spot for small kind issue PCs. I used to be lucky to spend time with a number of Steam Machines again in 2016. They’d their flaws, however they served to exhibit that you just actually might cram a strong gaming PC right into a kind issue the scale of a shoebox.
Within the years since, Intel confirmed what was attainable with its NUC Excessive mini-PCs, together with this one which packs in an i9 13900K and RTX 3080 Ti. A number of firms have jumped on the NUC bandwagon however for numerous causes they’ve by no means been marketed at fans in the best way a laptop computer or gaming PC could be.
However there’s excellent news! The NUC is way from lifeless. Intel despatched out a press launch asserting that Intel and Asus have agreed to a time period sheet, whereby Asus will promote and assist tenth to thirteenth Gen NUC product strains whereas giving Asus a non-exclusive license to design future NUC methods. Asus will create a brand new enterprise unit known as Asus NUC BU.
That is nice information. There’ll all the time be a marketplace for mini PCs. I can consider a dozen use circumstances. Level of sale, digital signage, crypto forex nodes, workplace machines, and so forth. However what actually excites me is what Asus might do with a gaming NUC. In any case, it is aware of easy methods to construct small kind issue PCs, and actually small ones at that. I am speaking about you, ROG Ally.
Gaming and NUCs are a bit like oil and water. The TDP and cooling necessities of highly effective GPUs means they don’t seem to be conducive to inclusion in really mini PCs. A system with a 13900K and RTX 4090 sounds good, however conserving temps beneath 100 levels Celsius is one other matter.
However we’re speaking about Asus. It is aware of a factor or two about PC parts. Simply think about if Asus was to develop a bespoke graphics card, for example an RTX 4070 Ti with a TDP of round 285W. Not a little bit, however by fashionable requirements, not loads both. Asus has the engineering experience to make such a card with a totally oddball PCB and cooler. I am pondering of some form of tower cooler for it, maybe together with the CPU cooler and a 14cm fan on the aspect of the PC.
It might promote it as some form of Asus ROG NUC gaming PC. Heck, it might market the crap out of it and growth! It is obtained a console competitor and and one million or two potential consumers lined up. Perhaps I am reaching, however the potentialities are actually intriguing.
With an organization like Asus behind it, the NUC line must be in good palms for a few years to return. All the present NUC use circumstances stay, and I simply hope it would not overlook there are avid gamers that need NUCs too.
Godspeed Asus.