Slashdot Mirror
Intel NUC5i7RYH Broadwell Mini PC With Iris Pro Graphics Tested
MojoKid writes: In addition to ushering in a wave of new notebooks and mobile devices, Intel's Broadwell microarchitecture has also found its way into a plethora of recently introduced small form factor systems like the company's NUC platform. The new NUC5i7RYH is a mini-PC packing a Core i7-5557U Broadwell processor with Iris Pro graphics, which makes it the most powerful NUC released to date. There's a 5th-gen Core i7 CPU inside (dual-core, quad-thread) that can turbo up to 3.4GHz, an Iris Pro 6100 series integrated graphics engine, support for dual-channel memory, M.2 and 2.5" SSDs, 802.1ac and USB 3.0. NUCs are generally barebones systems, so you have to build them up with a drive and memory before they can be used. The NUC5i7RYH is one of the slightly taller NUC systems that can accommodate both M.2 and 9.5mm 2.5 drives and all NUCs come with a power brick and VESA mount. With a low-power dual-core processor and on-die Iris Pro 6100-series graphics engine, the NUC5i7RYH won't offer the same kind of performance as systems equipped with higher-powered processors or discrete graphics cards, but for everyday computing tasks and casual gaming, it should fit the bill for users that want a low profile, out-of-the-way tiny PC.
The selling point of the Iris Pro is that it should be able to play AAA games at medium presets, but it's crippled by the low TDP and other iGPUs thrash it in benchmarks.
But then you would expect it to be virtually silent, because of the low TDP, but it's actually quite noisy.
Then, there's the price. Iris Pro has always come with a high price, because eDRAM is expensive to manufacture. That's one of the reasons why the previous generation Iris Pro had so few design wins.
Mini-ITX is absolutely colossal compared to the NUC. Even the Mac Mini is gigantic in comparison. On the other end, ARM is not even in the ballpark in performance. ARM definitely has its place, but it is not in the same class as the NUC.
By the time you buy your mini-ITX motherboard, case, and power supply you are paying more than an equivalent NUC. The 3i7 is cheap. And, unlike mini-ITX jammed-together nightmares, the NUCs are beautifully engineered systems that go together neatly.
I have never seen a mini-ITX that had anything close to an acceptable cooling system. They were noisy and/or inadequate. I went through a phase where I built a number of mini-ITX systems, and none of them were ever anywhere near satisfactory.
It's not as high as that. Here is one with all the pieces (including 16GB and M.2 SSD) all assembled and tested for $755. Same thing with the 5i5 is $630; 5i3 is even cheaper.
A Mac Mini with an i7, 16 GB and the cheapest available SSD is $1400. I just went to the Apple store to check. And the Mac Mini is 19.7x19.7 cm. The NUC is 11.5x11.1 cm. A whole different class. Even the original Mac Mini before it got pointlessly squashed down vertically and bloated horizontally was 15x15 - 17x17 cm. If I could find my old shell I would tell you, but it was definitely in that range. The present Mac Mini doesn't even use an external power brick you can toss on the floor under the desk. The main case is bloated to hold the whole power supply.
Maybe you could tell us just what is out there that IS competetive with the NUC?
The Core i7 5557U has an Iris 6100 GPU without the eDRAM L4 cache, unlike Iris Pro.
Mada mada dane.
My impression is that Apple's industrial design people believe cables, physical buttons, and anything that requires a hole in the shell of the product to be intrinsically filthy and sinful.
The mac mini, which has among the fewest integrated peripherals of any current Apple product, wantonly incites users to plug their filthy cables into the various ports cut into the perfection of the aluminium body. The iMac, by contrast, can be used in relative purity(with bluetooth peripherals) marred only by a power cable that is discretely hidden as such a shame should be.
I have one of these that I use as my media server... headless Plex back end, general home storage and home automation web server, etc. Runs CentOS 6 beautifully (Gigabit wired connection, so don't care about lack of wireless drivers). Using a 256GB M.2 SSD as the local storage, with a few multi-TB USB3 drives for the media storage.
The nice things is that the CPU is that it's beefy enough to do transcode of several shows at the same time as my wife, myself, and kids all watch different shows on Rokus, iPads, and other computers via Plex. At the same time it can pull OTA recorded shows from my Tablo, do a transcode, put them in the media storage, and serve them back out without a hiccup. Try that with an Atom or an ARM.
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"