Jesus Christ. Why does it feel like tech industry is just getting shittier and more expensive, while all the cool consumer options are being axed. Intel Nucs were a relatively cheap way to get a cute little desktop machine or a home server. I am sad that they're going away. I guess there's always Minisforum, but still...
Because infinite growth of profits on a finite planet.
Yeah this part bothers me. To these companies a solid profit stream is not viable. It has to be iPhone level growth year after year or they think it’s failing and axe it. It’s quite annoying. Eventually you will hit a plateau. That just means it’s a mature market, not failing. Grrrr…
You see the same shit on streaming services. "Oh this show has been out for two days and hasn't reached Game of Thrones level of popularity already? Let's remove it from existence forever."
Capitalism is unsustainable. We're seeing what happens in late capitalism. The belts tighten, the workers get left in the dust, the products consumers actually want get the axe.
Relatively cheap? Huh? At $500-$1000 they were exactly the opposite of a relatively cheap desktop machine.
There was a great resale market for them. I got an i7 8th gen for about $200-300 new when the 10th gen came out. It was clearly never used overstock that a reseller picked up cheap. Its a champ of a machine, still going strong.
They also made cheap celeron models that sold in the $100-200 range that were 5x as powerful as the raspi that would normally fill the niche.
Intel NUCs were very good machines but honestly they were completely overpriced compared to Chuwi/Minisforum/etc.
My guess is they were just not enough sales, that's all.
What’s the Chuwi Equivalent to a Nuc? Not being snarky, im genuinely looking for a small server.
Chip shortage. Since COVID, chip companies have been having a really hard time getting properly restocked. This impacts all electronics industries. Cars, computers, even Apple had to redesign some of their products to accommodate the shortages, so has many other companies big and small. The Raspberry Pi prices have soared. So products that take a chip away from a more mainstream or lucrative market are being axed.
There’s a chip shortage. Most people just use web based apps, so stay on their phones / cheap laptops Enthusiasts usually just build their own machines. Everything is more expensive. The list goes on
They were too pricy for me. I ended up with Bee-link machines (SER4/5/5Pro) and am happy with them.
Yeah I always coveted one but couldn't justify the cost over second hand dell or lenovo SFF PCs.
Sad really, but the issue, as someone as mentioned already is they were too expensive.
Every time I've had a use for these either a business PC (or ex-business referb for home) has always been a better, cheaper answer.
Real shame. Best purchase I've made for running Proxmox with Plex, Radarr, Sonarr, Home Assistant
I'm fine with it. Their competitors passed them by a few years ago anyway. The only thing the Intel branded stuff was better at now- was being more expensive.
Agree, love my NUC but it seems the last few years they haven't been the best option. It seems like they lost touch with what people wanted from them around the time they started releasing models that supported a full size GPU.
Between Minisforum and Beelink putting out NUC-likes with AMD, Intel just can't compete. I'm biased in favor of team red to begin with, but you just cannot tell me an Intel NUC provides better per dollar value than the above's offerings. I've used NUCs, I like NUCs, but why pay more for less when there exist alternatives?
Exactly, for a home lab I would pick an Amd over Intel just to have the extra cores on top of costing less.
Funny timing on this since the mini pc market is picking up steam from what I can tell. Then again, these are overpriced compared to the competition.
That depends. I don't think Intel actually wants to be in the market for whole (or barebones) systems. they probably would much rather just sell the processors and leave the rest to others. The NUCs were just a tool to kickstart the market, which seems to have worked quite nicely. The only issue being that now both AMD and Apple are strong competion.
So under that assumption this withdrawal makes a lot of sense, especially now that they need to focus all of their resources to catch up in their main business segment.
Didn't Valve make similar comments for the steam deck? That they see it as a tool to create a new market and hope that others follow.
Even if someone else were to make a much better handheld. As long as it runs Proton/Steam Valve would still win.
I think there's a niche for a computer slightly more powerful than a raspberry pi, with no need for active cooling, capable of running as a basic always-on server.
The Intel NUCs were always a bit too expensive for that, and the Raspberry Pis are slightly underpowered (plus the SD-card as the primary storage is limiting). But, there are increasingly ways that people who aren't massive computer geeks would want an always-on computer. Things like a home security system, a media downloader, a home automation machine, etc. The power consumption, noise and size of a desktop computer is just overkill for that. A Raspberry Pi could be, but the default versions are not designed as servers. They're more robotics sandboxes.
I own a bunch of them, generations five through ten, and have always had a love/hate relationship with them. None has ever died on me. My main workstation at home, as well as two "homelab" servers are NUCs. They Just Work under both Ubuntu and Proxmox.
The love is for them just working. The hate is for Intel :-)
What they got wrong:
That's not a lot to go wrong for such a big endeavour, which is why I will keep hating Intel and sorely missing the upgrade opportunity. Just hoping Dell will step into the void.
The article makes it sound they cost over $1,000 (USD?) and were impossible to find but here in Australia I never had any issues finding and unless you were going for the extreme versions, there closer to $5-600AUD which made them a great fit. All we can hope is that there’s a few other brands who are willing to fill the space with equal quality products.
I think this has more to do with the refurbished small form factor business PCs eating up their market share as they flooded the market. I can get a decent i5 unit for $100and throw a $100 into it in upgrades and hit the same performance as their $300-400+ price range.
Damn. I may need to buy a couple
That sucks, I hope this isn't a statement about the "Mini-Pc" market in general. I've been thinking about getting one as a "Steam machine/ emulation station" for a long time but the stars never really lined up.
I've got a full sized PC in the front room getting long in the tooth and looking ridiculous that could easily be replaced. But while the 970 still plays Dave the Diver, well there's other shit money can be spent on.
Wasn't meant as a reply, pressed the wrong thing, my bad
Oh man i was thinking of getting one of these to replace my raspberry pi
I got an i7-6700 skull canyon? for free through work many years ago, absolutely love it, it now serves as a Linux box and hosts server stuff on it. Only issue is a ram port died and seemed a common problem!?
Still enjoying using it and it's form factor is fantastic, not sure if I would replace my own desktop with it but would have been an easy consideration for the kids first PC although it may benefit them actually building a tower and learning.
Shame to hear they are stopping
What's the opinion about System76's mini PCs? I've just ran across them and thinking of getting one.
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