oh wow! I didn't think intel would follow up on their extreme NUC lineup, considering how fast they killed some of their other products, like optane, and big/little.
>I didn't think intel would follow up on their extreme NUC lineup, considering how fast they killed some of their other products, like optane, and big/little.
Intel heterogeneous multicore isn't dead (Alder Lake is going to use it) and neither is Optane (DCPMMs are active products and have a roadmap - admittedly, so did Itanium until Jan 2013...)
Lakefield is dead. Consumer flagship Optane SSDs are dead.
Actually, the production of the memory chips used by Optane has been transferred to Micron (out of the Intel/Micron joint venture) and Micron will stop production in a few years.
Hardly. NUC is SFF desktops. The longest dimension is still shorter than the shortest dimension on mITX. Do you want your desktop to break the laws of physics or is it acceptable to follow them?
Where do you get the longest dimension being shorter than the shortest dimension on mITX? This is very similar in size to some of the smaller ITX cases.
Beast Canyon is 357 x 189 x 120mm, 8 liters..
A Dancase A4 SFX is 112 x 205 x 327mm, 7.2 liters.
The original "Next Unit of Computing" was specifically meant to be an extremely small (below ITX sized) system that was significantly smaller than could be assembled by an end-user from off-the-shelf parts - not just an "SFF desktop".
Kaby G was a stretch, but it was still as small as you could get for the power. As notashill noted this one is way, way past that goal. They're free to dilute their branding if they want to, but that's absolutely what they're doing here.
Exactly, I'm struggling to see any genuine innovation here, at least it was fun seeing what they could cram into 1.2L, now they might as well rebrand Alienware boxes and call it a day.
Apple will have M2 ready soon, and here we have another generic 5L bread bin with a 650W PSU.
Fully agree. You can get smaller sff pc cases than this and put similar components in it. The NUC has been about not being able to build such a small thing yourself because it was essentially custom.
And toilets don't have to be bowl shaped either... there's a clear inference (after eight generations at least) that these things should be small and compact.
Intel's marketing literature was pretty specific about it. Sure, they can change what NUC means by turning into a generic smallish PC device similar to Micro ATX, but that genericizes the NUC to the point where it just becomes Intel's brand for a form factor that already exists.
> but that genericizes the NUC to the point where it just becomes Intel's brand
Yes, Intel is a pro at taking a naming scheme that has some logic to it, and then twisting it into something meaningless. Like, the i3/i5/i7 naming scheme, for instance. On some of their laptop chips, like the U-series Skylakes, they had exactly the same core-count and thread-count, differing only in a few hundred MHz of clock speed.
Hey, if marketing simply came up with a logical naming scheme and sticking to it, how would they "add value"? Marketing is always looking for a way to gin up sales, in the next quarter or FY.
Remember, we're talking about the same Intel that changed their Xeon processors from using the E3/E5/E7 naming scheme to E/W/Silver/Gold/Platinum, back in 2017!
The previous Ghost Canyon had a variant with a mobile Xeon and ECC memory. It was very nice, except for 2 problems. It was introduced one year too late, when Coffee Lake Refresh was already too obsolete and it was overpriced by about $500 compared with a standard desktop with similar features.
For this one, no version with a Xeon has been announced and there were no rumors about such a version.
There are people like myself, who do not accept to use a computer without ECC in any circumstance. So, except for my mobile phone, I do not use any computer without ECC, neither as a laptop, nor as a desktop nor as a SFF computer and of course not as a server.
Any computer without ECC is just a toy, guaranteed to have errors from time to time, which should be used only in game consoles or similar applications.
The fact that the computers without ECC are not a small niche is sad and this just shows how many people are so gullible that they will believe whatever a vendor says that is good for them.
Have you actually done the math on how infrequently ECC actually helps the typical user?
So what if roughly once a year, I get a one bit change in my audio for a split second, or a single pixel changed on my video, or my photo needs to load twice from Facebook, etc. Most people just don't have anything that is valuable on their personal computers any more. Almost nothing most people do now on computers will care if a memory error occurs. Combine that with the very infrequent memory errors and it just isn't a problem.
Absolute worst case scenario: I have to restore one corrupted file from backup.
With servers, ECC certainly is needed. With certain financial and security applications, ECC is definitely needed. For people to repost spam on Facebook? Nope, ECC need not found.
Yes, it is. I just ditched a system that could no longer install an OS without error. Memory tests hung. It wasn't the modules. Dust had shorted some memory channel pins and either damaged the motherboard or CPU.
There were bad blocks all over the disk. I ran fsck to get back the user's files but there is no telling if the data's any good.
> Have you actually done the math on how infrequently ECC actually helps the typical user?
If you have bad RAM, it can be a major source of system instability. I think this is the primary benefit of ECC.
I've wasted time debugging software problems, in the past, only to find out that the problem was specific to a given machine and that machine turned out to have bad RAM. Once the DIMM indicated by memtest was replaced, the bug stopped occurring.
So, for the sake of my time and sanity, I use ECC whenever possible. Even though bad RAM isn't that common, the premium for ECC is a small price to pay for the extra margin of safety.
When ECC isn't an option, I always do an initial overnight memtest run and try to use memory rated for a higher speed than what I plan to run it at.
And the more obvious retort, this is a "SFF Gaming Powerhouse", I asked why one would want ECC for it and you reply with "should be used only in game consoles or similar applications". Seems like you missed the point of the product.
If there is another use case for this product that actually needs ECC, then I'm curious to know what that use case is.
A powerful personal computer. NUCs are made to be personal computers. If they put a big CPU and GPU in it then it's going to handle workloads thrown at it. How does ECC not fit this use case?
SFF works best as portable gaming and home theater uses. Neither of which have any need for ECC.
I'm not saying that some computers don't need ECC. It is just that desktop computers that need ECC usually aren't physical size limited, don't need to be portable, and/or don't need full size video cards. I'm just stumped as to any real use case that actually needs that particular combo. Every use case that I can think of where ECC helps (which is not really common for personal users) either doesn't need SFF or doesn't need a large video card. It sounds much more like a wish list than a real need.
I have literally never had a computer that wasn't overclocked fail due to a random bit-flip memory error, but okay, I guess they were all toys and we should all be paying extra for redundant chips on our DIMMs 🤷♂️
In PC help forums, it's not uncommon to find users complaining of system instability, only for it to turn out they have bad RAM. ECC buys you some initial protection + notification (if you know where to look) that your RAM is failing.
That's a new one! How does it even work? A rowhammer attack hits a DRAM row so frequently that an adjacent row changes. It's an *extremely* targeted attack, and requires the attacker to have some detailed knowledge of the target process' memory layout for it to have much potential as an exploit.
Furthermore, if it works, you're just going to cause random bit-flips. To beat ECC, you actually need to cause at least 3 bit flips, or I guess only 2 if your goal is to make the process abort.
Finally, to actually fetch a row of DRAM means it can't be in the cache hierarchy. So, you've got to explicitly invalidate the cacheline or do something else to ensure it's evicted.
So, the first question is how can one *remotely* hammer a row of DRAM? Wouldn't any sort of protection against DoS attacks occur, long before you could do it? And how are you going to ensure it keeps getting evicted from the cache hierarchy?
In actual practice, the only real risk I see of Rowhammer is when one VM tenant just wants to create lots of chaos in the other tenants. It's not a complete non-issue, but also probably ranks fairly low on the scale of exploits.
And it's *certainly* not an argument against using ECC. If anything, it's yet another reason *to* use it, since ECC can correct minor instances and detect many others. Without ECC, you'd be even *more* vulnerable, and you'd be much less likely to have any clue that it's happening.
One usually moves towards desktop PCs in order to move away from expensive-to-replace custom hardware found in laptops, amongst other things. I would not buy this if it was going to cost a bomb to replace in case of some motherboard related issue.
Other than the CPU and compute unit pcb itself, I don't see anything on the compute unit that isn't easily replaceable.
PSU, GPU, RAM and SSD are all replaceable, which is really about as good as it gets for something that is using laptop parts. Going to a desktop, the only additional thing you can replace is the CPU.
That's a pretty big "other than!" - if an ITX motherboard fails, you can replace that without buying a new CPU. Same goes for an upgrade / replacement of the CPU itself. Those are at least ~$150+ and ~$350+ expenses, respectively, for something of this calibre.
Of all the parts that are likely to fail prematurely in a PC, the least likely is the CPU, followed by the mobo.
For mobo failures, it's either DOA, or after 5yrs+. By the time you hit 5yrs+, there is a high likelyhood you can't find a replacement ITX mobo anyways, thus forcing you to buy both CPU+mobo, and potentially RAM.
I mean, if you are that worried about premature failure outside of warranty, just buy a 3yr or 5yr extended warranty with the seller.
In terms of part replaceability, I'd worry that the form factor would be a big impediment to part selection. That'd be the main rationale for preferring a standard desktop.
The main reason I'd buy this machine is that it's the only way to get a Tiger Lake-H, outside of laptop.
I really don't trust most reviewers' assessments of what is and it not quiet, sadly. It does look like it might be engineered well enough not to be a constant irritant, but that type of fan has a high noise floor and a relatively high pitch by default.
a) This is the formerly Sun Microsystems Penguin on steroids. (Add-in card based computers is nothing new. Google it.)
b) It would be interesting to see a time history trace/plot of the CPU frequency during the CPU stress test because I've found that the 100 mm x 100 mm generation of Intel NUCs - the CPUs were SEVERELY limited and would thermal throttle very quickly under full CPU load such that you weren't ever able to use said Intel NUCs to its fullest potential.
c) It's really a shame that AMD doesn't have something like this.
The thermal behavior of the 100 mm x 100 mm NUCs has varied a lot from generation to generation, because they have used different coolers, some more efficient others less efficient, some noisier other less noisy.
I have more than a dozen of different NUCs and I believe that the best coolers were in their 8th generation, i.e. 2018/2019, with Coffee Lake or Cannon Lake CPUs (Cannon Lake was of course a pathetic CPU, but they used the same good coolers like Coffee Lake).
Those 8th generation NUC coolers were practically silent in normal operation and they allowed in the i7 Cofee Lake model a power dissipation of 50 W for the first half minute then of 30 W forever, which was much better than any laptop that used the same CPU (e.g. Apple).
So with adequate coolers it is possible to have good performance even in the 100 mm x 100 mm (4 inch) size.
"It's really a shame that AMD doesn't have something like this"
They do. Pick one of the dozens of SFF cases on the market and build (or buy) it yourself. The only thing you'll be missing is the soldered CPU preventing an easy upgrade.
"The slot to the right of the processor is enabled by the x4 Gen 4 lanes directly from the processor, while the two to the right (and the M.2 slot occupied by the WLAN card) are from the PCH."
One of those rights is wrong.
"They can operate in Thunderbolt 4 (40Gbps), native USB 4 (10Gbps), and native DP1.4 modes."
That should be: "They can operate in Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 (40 Gbps), native USB3 (10 Gbps), and native DisplayPort 1.4 (8.1 Gbps, DSC 1.1 supported) modes."
Would have liked to see the metrics also include a regular non-SFF build which included similar parts (CPU/GPU/RAM/NVME) to contrast what is being given up for the size shrink.
Wasn't Intel that company that locked-in their vendors, to make sure that suprerior competitors didn't get a chance? For which they had to pay petty-handouts in lawsuits (like: singular billions), because the real/justicial world wasn't used to the profits made by their criminal behaviour?
I've owned two Skull Canyon NUC's, two Hades Canyon, and a Ghost Canyon NUC 9 Pro. I love the expandability of the card slot in the Ghost Canyon NUC 9 Pro, but I think Beast Canyon has crossed a line where it's just too large for me now. You could still take a Ghost Canyon as carry-on on a flight no problem, or shove it in a backpack for a bike commute - but this just is just so chunky and boxy, it looks too much like something that belongs on a desk.
Can I buy the new compute element card and put it in a Ghost Canyon case?
Will there be an updated Xeon compute element? I'm running mine as a NAS box with a ZFS drive array connected via Thunderbolt, and ZFS wants the ECC RAM.
"Can I buy the new compute element card and put it in a Ghost Canyon case?" I've been wondering that - I thought part of the point of the Element was to enable that sort of upgrade, but then I guess you'd lose the PCIe 4.0 compatibility
Question: Can you purchase (I believe you can) JUST the element and place it into the previous model's chassis? That's what I was led to believe with this 'supposed' upgradability. If not, then possibly avoid this machine as there won't (probably) be an upgrade path. I did own the previous gen.
Question 2: What the heck is going on with the smaller Nuc 11 units? I cannot seem to buy one ANYWHERE (u.k.).
I think Tiger Lake is simply in high-demand. Intel likely prioritizes notebook OEMs above its own NUCs. Most NUC buyers probably don't know or care about the difference between 10th gen and 11th gen, so it's less bad to undersupply that market. Of course, this is all speculation.
I'm assuming they use the cheapest fans they can get away with. I'm sure the noise would improve dramatically if you replaced them with some better ones.
1. It would help to benchmark them with more realistic specs, and consistent specs across the different SFF computers you included. 16 GB of RAM is too little for something this high-end, with an 8-core i9 Tiger Lake CPU, and a new-gen Nvidia 3060 GPU. (And you had 32 GB of in the Zotac...) 512 GB of SSD is too small for this kind of build, and there are big differences in SSD performance between 512 GB units and 1 TB+ sizes. (And you have different SSD models and sizes across the tested computers, ruining the validity of the results.)
2. Intel's prices are still a bummer. I love the idea of a NUC, and of these X Canyon big-NUCs, but their prices and availability have always ruled them out. It's just worth it for what you get. We have to add several hundred dollars to that $1,350 price for this model. And hundreds more for a display, keyboard, and mouse. It's easily a $2,000 build, probably more like $2,300, all before taxes.
It makes more sense to go to PCPartPicker and build out a compact PC using one of those cuboid cases. They're a lot bigger than NUCs, but much smaller than mid-towers.
3. Intel really struggles with naming and model numbers. The NUCs are a messy jumble of letters and digits. And Intel commits the sin of having multiple names for the same thing, and you have to keep track of numerous confusing terms and their relation to each other. e.g.:
-- Goldmont vs. Apollo Lake, using Skylake arch, vs. Braxton vs. Willow Trail -- Cherryview vs. Cherry Trail vs. Airmont -- Beast Canyon vs. Bean Canyon vs. NUC vs. NUC11BTMi9 -- NUC11BTMi9 vs NUC11DBBi9, where the former is supposed to be a computer and the latter is a "Compute Element"
Nothing about the substring BTMi9 screams "computer", and nothing about the substring DBBi9 screams "Compute Element". It's all such a mess, and it makes it hard to shop for and buy Intel's products. If you don't already know the exact model number of what you want, there's no way to know from the model numbers that you encounter what you're getting or where it fits into the larger context of NUC models. These are things that any organization should be able to fix – clean, consistent naming, and clean, concise, and non-ugly model numbers.
> It makes more sense to go to PCPartPicker and > build out a compact PC using one of those cuboid cases.
Except you cannot buy a Tiger Lake-H CPU. They're only sold in BGA and mostly found in laptops.
Unlike the Gemini/Jasper/Elkhart Lake CPUs (which are also BGA and often found in Chromebooks), you probably can't buy a mITX motherboard with them pre-installed, either.
I didn't think of that, though it wouldn't matter in my case. Whenever I build out a system at PCPartPicker I choose the Core i7-11700 or one of the Zen 3 chips – I think it's called a 5600 or 5800, but I forget. I don't think Tiger Lake-H would be an improvement from those, just maybe lower power.
The GPUs are decent for integrated, and that has made me lean toward Intel because of the difficulty in finding current gen discrete GPUs like the 3060 Ti, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet. The Zen 3s don't have integrated GPUs, which would leave me without a GPU unless I settled for an obsolete 1650 or something. I'd rather live with the Intel 750 for a spell until the powerhouses are available at normal prices.
> I choose the Core i7-11700 ... I don't think Tiger Lake-H would be an improvement > from those, just maybe lower power.
There are some notable differences. The desktop 11th gen CPUs are Rocket Lake, built on Intel's 14 nm++++ process, using Cypress Cove cores. Those cores are a 14 nm back-port of Ice Lake's (launched in 2019) Sunny Cove.
The Laptop & NUC 11th gen CPUs are Tiger Lake, which use Intel's 10 nm+++ node (also called 10 nm SF). They use Willow Cove cores, which are a generation newer than Ice Lake's (and therefore Rocket Lake's). However, the generational gains of the cores were modest, with the main difference being that Tiger Lake clocks higher.
Now, if you want to compare spec-for-spec, try this:
The main thing that shows is that Tiger Lake-H has 50% more cache and the top-end model clocks lower. However, being a laptop chip, the top-end model also has a TDP of just 65 W. So, it's probably better to compare it with the fastest 65 W Rocket Lake:
According to that, Tiger Lake-H is able to offer a much better Base clock, though its turbo is still lower. That's probably because its peak power is also lower, again being a laptop chip. Furthermore, clock speeds don't tell the whole story. In the end, specs are no match for actual benchmarks:
These benchmarks show Rocket Lake pulling ahead in GPU tests, probably due to its faster turbo. However, when it comes to CPU-intensive tests, we see Tiger Lake hold its own.
Unfortunately, not many people seem to have run that exact comparison. Most are either comparing with the top Rocket Lake SKU or just other SFF PCs. If anyone else has benchmarks of the i9-11900KB vs. i9-11900, please share.
I guess the point is that if you care about power/noise/size, this NUC Extreme seems pretty compelling. If you're willing to spend a bit more and go for a top-of-the-line desktop, then you should probably fare better with Rocket Lake.
I wish Tiger Lake-H came in a LGA-1200 socketed version, so we could really see it stretch its legs. I'll bet it would beat even i9-11900KF by a noticeable amount.
> The Zen 3s don't have integrated GPUs
They do now! Check out the new Ryzen 5000G models!
> And Intel commits the sin of having multiple names for the same thing, > and you have to keep track of numerous confusing terms and their > relation to each other. e.g.: > > -- Goldmont vs. Apollo Lake, using Skylake arch, vs. Braxton vs. Willow Trail > -- Cherryview vs. Cherry Trail vs. Airmont
Goldmont is the core. Apollo Lake is the SoC. The "Mont" cores are the low-power ones. They've been very consistent about that: Silvermont, Airmont, Goldmont, Goldmont+, Tremont, and soon Gracemont.
Starting with Ice Lake, the big cores are named after coves, so far.
And the "Trail" names seem to be system designs, or something?
The one naming convention that really got out of control is the "lakes". Those seem to have very little consistent meaning. I think they have a few Lakes that aren't even CPUs/SoCs.
> Nothing about the substring BTMi9 screams "computer"
It's just a model number, dude. Just type it into a search engine and look it up. And some places I've seen will at least say it's a NUC compute element, although that requires you to know how one differs from a regular NUC.
> It's all such a mess
I will agree that Intel's product line is full of subtle variations, like NUCs with one vs. two Ethernet ports. I was staring at two Tiger Lake NUC listings, trying to figure out the difference, until I noticed that.
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meacupla - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
oh wow!I didn't think intel would follow up on their extreme NUC lineup, considering how fast they killed some of their other products, like optane, and big/little.
Jorgp2 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
>I didn't think intel would follow up on their extreme NUC lineup, considering how fast they killed some of their other products, like optane, and big/little.Wat?
They're still making both of those.
Gasaraki88 - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link
Yeah, wth is that guy smoking.SarahKerrigan - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Intel heterogeneous multicore isn't dead (Alder Lake is going to use it) and neither is Optane (DCPMMs are active products and have a roadmap - admittedly, so did Itanium until Jan 2013...)Lakefield is dead. Consumer flagship Optane SSDs are dead.
Calin - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
Actually, the production of the memory chips used by Optane has been transferred to Micron (out of the Intel/Micron joint venture) and Micron will stop production in a few years.mode_13h - Monday, August 2, 2021 - link
Intel will just move it somewhere else.powerarmour - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Intel are clearly moving the goalposts here on what a NUC form factor should be, will the next NUC's be full towers?willis936 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Hardly. NUC is SFF desktops. The longest dimension is still shorter than the shortest dimension on mITX. Do you want your desktop to break the laws of physics or is it acceptable to follow them?powerarmour - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Well, 300W power draw gives us the lovely shoebox, how delightful.notashill - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Where do you get the longest dimension being shorter than the shortest dimension on mITX? This is very similar in size to some of the smaller ITX cases.Beast Canyon is 357 x 189 x 120mm, 8 liters..
A Dancase A4 SFX is 112 x 205 x 327mm, 7.2 liters.
Spunjji - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
The original "Next Unit of Computing" was specifically meant to be an extremely small (below ITX sized) system that was significantly smaller than could be assembled by an end-user from off-the-shelf parts - not just an "SFF desktop".Kaby G was a stretch, but it was still as small as you could get for the power. As notashill noted this one is way, way past that goal. They're free to dilute their branding if they want to, but that's absolutely what they're doing here.
Tams80 - Sunday, August 8, 2021 - link
Eh. Is it really offering anything unique that is hard (too hard) for an average person to bodge together on their own from off the shelf parts?No, it isn't. The other NUCs so far have been something you couldn't just buy the components for and assemble with no skill in perhaps an hour.
mode_13h - Monday, August 9, 2021 - link
> Is it really offering anything unique that is hard (too hard) for> an average person to bodge together on their own from off the shelf parts?
Please show me where I can find a Tiger Lake-H CPU and motherboard, off-the-shelf. You can't because it's BGA-only.
> The other NUCs so far have been something you couldn't just buy the components
> for and assemble with no skill in perhaps an hour.
Because (like this!) they use laptop parts in a (compact) desktop enclosure.
In this case, the only real exception is the GPU. And the fact that it's on a regular graphics card is a feature, since that makes it upgradable.
defaultluser - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Yeah, they even phoned-in the case design - it's exactly the same look as a Cougar QBX.https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16811553020?quicklink...
powerarmour - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Exactly, I'm struggling to see any genuine innovation here, at least it was fun seeing what they could cram into 1.2L, now they might as well rebrand Alienware boxes and call it a day.Apple will have M2 ready soon, and here we have another generic 5L bread bin with a 650W PSU.
Spunjji - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
Oh neat - a new case to look at next time I do an SFF build. Thanks!beginner99 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Fully agree. You can get smaller sff pc cases than this and put similar components in it. The NUC has been about not being able to build such a small thing yourself because it was essentially custom.damianrobertjones - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
'Next Unit of Computing'.Nowhere does it state that they have to be small.
powerarmour - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
And toilets don't have to be bowl shaped either... there's a clear inference (after eight generations at least) that these things should be small and compact.Wrs - Saturday, July 31, 2021 - link
It does remove a lot of the purpose for buying it when any old SFF case can house the same components without locking you to Intel cardsvol.2 - Tuesday, August 3, 2021 - link
SFF = SMALL form factorIntel's marketing literature was pretty specific about it. Sure, they can change what NUC means by turning into a generic smallish PC device similar to Micro ATX, but that genericizes the NUC to the point where it just becomes Intel's brand for a form factor that already exists.
mode_13h - Wednesday, August 4, 2021 - link
> but that genericizes the NUC to the point where it just becomes Intel's brandYes, Intel is a pro at taking a naming scheme that has some logic to it, and then twisting it into something meaningless. Like, the i3/i5/i7 naming scheme, for instance. On some of their laptop chips, like the U-series Skylakes, they had exactly the same core-count and thread-count, differing only in a few hundred MHz of clock speed.
Hey, if marketing simply came up with a logical naming scheme and sticking to it, how would they "add value"? Marketing is always looking for a way to gin up sales, in the next quarter or FY.
mode_13h - Wednesday, August 4, 2021 - link
Remember, we're talking about the same Intel that changed their Xeon processors from using the E3/E5/E7 naming scheme to E/W/Silver/Gold/Platinum, back in 2017!mode_13h - Sunday, August 1, 2021 - link
> Intel are clearly moving the goalposts here on what a NUC form factor should beSo far, the lineup is:
* NUC Essential
* NUC
* NUC Pro
* NUC Extreme
I expect further up-range models will be:
* NUC Insane - HEDT CPU + dual GPU + water cooling
* NUC Ridiculous - dual CPU + quad-GPU + external radiator
willis936 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Now make it with ECC :)Jorgp2 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Buy one with ECCwillis936 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
I would if the chipsets of CPUs from anytime in the past two years were available.AdrianBc - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
The previous Ghost Canyon had a variant with a mobile Xeon and ECC memory.It was very nice, except for 2 problems.
It was introduced one year too late, when Coffee Lake Refresh was already too obsolete and it was overpriced by about $500 compared with a standard desktop with similar features.
For this one, no version with a Xeon has been announced and there were no rumors about such a version.
dullard - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
I'm curious what niche use case needs a moderately small computer, but not too small, with video card, and ECC.AdrianBc - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
There are people like myself, who do not accept to use a computer without ECC in any circumstance. So, except for my mobile phone, I do not use any computer without ECC, neither as a laptop, nor as a desktop nor as a SFF computer and of course not as a server.Any computer without ECC is just a toy, guaranteed to have errors from time to time, which should be used only in game consoles or similar applications.
The fact that the computers without ECC are not a small niche is sad and this just shows how many people are so gullible that they will believe whatever a vendor says that is good for them.
dullard - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Have you actually done the math on how infrequently ECC actually helps the typical user?So what if roughly once a year, I get a one bit change in my audio for a split second, or a single pixel changed on my video, or my photo needs to load twice from Facebook, etc. Most people just don't have anything that is valuable on their personal computers any more. Almost nothing most people do now on computers will care if a memory error occurs. Combine that with the very infrequent memory errors and it just isn't a problem.
Absolute worst case scenario: I have to restore one corrupted file from backup.
With servers, ECC certainly is needed. With certain financial and security applications, ECC is definitely needed. For people to repost spam on Facebook? Nope, ECC need not found.
willis936 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Once you start climbing up the bathtub curve it isn't one bit flip every year. It's dirty bits constantly written to disk. It's a real nightmare.Spunjji - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
"constantly"Not really
willis936 - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
Yes, it is. I just ditched a system that could no longer install an OS without error. Memory tests hung. It wasn't the modules. Dust had shorted some memory channel pins and either damaged the motherboard or CPU.There were bad blocks all over the disk. I ran fsck to get back the user's files but there is no telling if the data's any good.
Do you even know what a bathtub curve is?
mode_13h - Monday, August 2, 2021 - link
> Have you actually done the math on how infrequently ECC actually helps the typical user?If you have bad RAM, it can be a major source of system instability. I think this is the primary benefit of ECC.
I've wasted time debugging software problems, in the past, only to find out that the problem was specific to a given machine and that machine turned out to have bad RAM. Once the DIMM indicated by memtest was replaced, the bug stopped occurring.
So, for the sake of my time and sanity, I use ECC whenever possible. Even though bad RAM isn't that common, the premium for ECC is a small price to pay for the extra margin of safety.
When ECC isn't an option, I always do an initial overnight memtest run and try to use memory rated for a higher speed than what I plan to run it at.
dullard - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
And the more obvious retort, this is a "SFF Gaming Powerhouse", I asked why one would want ECC for it and you reply with "should be used only in game consoles or similar applications". Seems like you missed the point of the product.If there is another use case for this product that actually needs ECC, then I'm curious to know what that use case is.
willis936 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
A powerful personal computer. NUCs are made to be personal computers. If they put a big CPU and GPU in it then it's going to handle workloads thrown at it. How does ECC not fit this use case?dullard - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
SFF works best as portable gaming and home theater uses. Neither of which have any need for ECC.I'm not saying that some computers don't need ECC. It is just that desktop computers that need ECC usually aren't physical size limited, don't need to be portable, and/or don't need full size video cards. I'm just stumped as to any real use case that actually needs that particular combo. Every use case that I can think of where ECC helps (which is not really common for personal users) either doesn't need SFF or doesn't need a large video card. It sounds much more like a wish list than a real need.
Spunjji - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
"It sounds much more like a wish list than a real need."Bingo, but some people's wish lists are backed up by some heavy post-hoc rationalization.
willis936 - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
This thinking is painfully flawed.You don't *need* a computer of any kind. Why bother with a smartphone or a SFF desktop?
vegemeister - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
Actual gaming consoles are stateless or nearly so, and get rebooted fresh every time they're used.PCs that are used for gaming do not work like that.
Spunjji - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
I have literally never had a computer that wasn't overclocked fail due to a random bit-flip memory error, but okay, I guess they were all toys and we should all be paying extra for redundant chips on our DIMMs 🤷♂️willis936 - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
What a valuable anecdote.mode_13h - Monday, August 2, 2021 - link
In PC help forums, it's not uncommon to find users complaining of system instability, only for it to turn out they have bad RAM. ECC buys you some initial protection + notification (if you know where to look) that your RAM is failing.Unashamed_unoriginal_username_x86 - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
there is a scale of snobbery from gamer to anti-gamer and it is a horseshoeAlso ECC is still vulnerable to remote rowhammer attacks
Oxford Guy - Wednesday, August 11, 2021 - link
Yes... if you want more security you don’t want ECC. Security via data corruption!mode_13h - Thursday, August 12, 2021 - link
> remote rowhammer attacksThat's a new one! How does it even work? A rowhammer attack hits a DRAM row so frequently that an adjacent row changes. It's an *extremely* targeted attack, and requires the attacker to have some detailed knowledge of the target process' memory layout for it to have much potential as an exploit.
Furthermore, if it works, you're just going to cause random bit-flips. To beat ECC, you actually need to cause at least 3 bit flips, or I guess only 2 if your goal is to make the process abort.
Finally, to actually fetch a row of DRAM means it can't be in the cache hierarchy. So, you've got to explicitly invalidate the cacheline or do something else to ensure it's evicted.
So, the first question is how can one *remotely* hammer a row of DRAM? Wouldn't any sort of protection against DoS attacks occur, long before you could do it? And how are you going to ensure it keeps getting evicted from the cache hierarchy?
In actual practice, the only real risk I see of Rowhammer is when one VM tenant just wants to create lots of chaos in the other tenants. It's not a complete non-issue, but also probably ranks fairly low on the scale of exploits.
And it's *certainly* not an argument against using ECC. If anything, it's yet another reason *to* use it, since ECC can correct minor instances and detect many others. Without ECC, you'd be even *more* vulnerable, and you'd be much less likely to have any clue that it's happening.
ads295 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
One usually moves towards desktop PCs in order to move away from expensive-to-replace custom hardware found in laptops, amongst other things. I would not buy this if it was going to cost a bomb to replace in case of some motherboard related issue.meacupla - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Other than the CPU and compute unit pcb itself, I don't see anything on the compute unit that isn't easily replaceable.PSU, GPU, RAM and SSD are all replaceable, which is really about as good as it gets for something that is using laptop parts.
Going to a desktop, the only additional thing you can replace is the CPU.
Spunjji - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
"Other than the CPU and compute unit pcb itself"That's a pretty big "other than!" - if an ITX motherboard fails, you can replace that without buying a new CPU. Same goes for an upgrade / replacement of the CPU itself. Those are at least ~$150+ and ~$350+ expenses, respectively, for something of this calibre.
meacupla - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
Of all the parts that are likely to fail prematurely in a PC, the least likely is the CPU, followed by the mobo.For mobo failures, it's either DOA, or after 5yrs+. By the time you hit 5yrs+, there is a high likelyhood you can't find a replacement ITX mobo anyways, thus forcing you to buy both CPU+mobo, and potentially RAM.
I mean, if you are that worried about premature failure outside of warranty, just buy a 3yr or 5yr extended warranty with the seller.
mode_13h - Monday, August 2, 2021 - link
In terms of part replaceability, I'd worry that the form factor would be a big impediment to part selection. That'd be the main rationale for preferring a standard desktop.The main reason I'd buy this machine is that it's the only way to get a Tiger Lake-H, outside of laptop.
TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
I see that cooling and all I can think of is *noise*meacupla - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
From what I've seen in other reviews, it's very quiet, even at full load.Spunjji - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
I really don't trust most reviewers' assessments of what is and it not quiet, sadly. It does look like it might be engineered well enough not to be a constant irritant, but that type of fan has a high noise floor and a relatively high pitch by default.meacupla - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
Okay, well, you can go down your "I don't trust most reviewers" rabbit hole then.Oxford Guy - Wednesday, August 11, 2021 - link
I trust that this review’s comment about production BIOS fan noise is an example of tasteful understatement.willis936 - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
You see 3x 120x25 mm fans and think "that's going to be loud"?alpha754293 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
a) This is the formerly Sun Microsystems Penguin on steroids.(Add-in card based computers is nothing new. Google it.)
b) It would be interesting to see a time history trace/plot of the CPU frequency during the CPU stress test because I've found that the 100 mm x 100 mm generation of Intel NUCs - the CPUs were SEVERELY limited and would thermal throttle very quickly under full CPU load such that you weren't ever able to use said Intel NUCs to its fullest potential.
c) It's really a shame that AMD doesn't have something like this.
AdrianBc - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
The thermal behavior of the 100 mm x 100 mm NUCs has varied a lot from generation to generation, because they have used different coolers, some more efficient others less efficient, some noisier other less noisy.I have more than a dozen of different NUCs and I believe that the best coolers were in their 8th generation, i.e. 2018/2019, with Coffee Lake or Cannon Lake CPUs (Cannon Lake was of course a pathetic CPU, but they used the same good coolers like Coffee Lake).
Those 8th generation NUC coolers were practically silent in normal operation and they allowed in the i7 Cofee Lake model a power dissipation of 50 W for the first half minute then of 30 W forever, which was much better than any laptop that used the same CPU (e.g. Apple).
So with adequate coolers it is possible to have good performance even in the 100 mm x 100 mm (4 inch) size.
sorten - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
"It's really a shame that AMD doesn't have something like this"They do. Pick one of the dozens of SFF cases on the market and build (or buy) it yourself. The only thing you'll be missing is the soldered CPU preventing an easy upgrade.
n0x1ous - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
would have been nice to see the Razer Tomahawk Ghost Canyon NUC compared to thisrepoman27 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
A couple minor nits..."The slot to the right of the processor is enabled by the x4 Gen 4 lanes directly from the processor, while the two to the right (and the M.2 slot occupied by the WLAN card) are from the PCH."
One of those rights is wrong.
"They can operate in Thunderbolt 4 (40Gbps), native USB 4 (10Gbps), and native DP1.4 modes."
That should be: "They can operate in Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 (40 Gbps), native USB3 (10 Gbps), and native DisplayPort 1.4 (8.1 Gbps, DSC 1.1 supported) modes."
repoman27 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Dang it, DP is 4 lanes so my correction requires correction.That should be: "They can operate in Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 (40 Gbps), native USB3 (10 Gbps), and native DisplayPort 1.4 (32.4 Gbps, DSC 1.1 supported) modes."
mcnabney - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Would have liked to see the metrics also include a regular non-SFF build which included similar parts (CPU/GPU/RAM/NVME) to contrast what is being given up for the size shrink.Calin - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
Just to see how much a power dissipation of 200W instead of 100W would help a 65W processor.mode_13h - Monday, August 2, 2021 - link
Yeah, a Rocket Lake i9 would've been an interesting comparison. I think TomsHardware tried that, if you want to look it up.Timoo - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Wasn't Intel that company that locked-in their vendors, to make sure that suprerior competitors didn't get a chance?For which they had to pay petty-handouts in lawsuits (like: singular billions), because the real/justicial world wasn't used to the profits made by their criminal behaviour?
5j3rul3 - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
Like to see the comprasion between the NUC11i9 with R7 5800X, i9 11900K, i9 10900K, 5800U, 5980HS, 1165G7, 11980HK and Apple M1.8 Cores the Great🤣
I am also curious about the Perf. of Xe Graphic in the i9 10900KB
But it seems the i9 10900KB is the
better i9 for intel DT user.
hubick - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
I've owned two Skull Canyon NUC's, two Hades Canyon, and a Ghost Canyon NUC 9 Pro. I love the expandability of the card slot in the Ghost Canyon NUC 9 Pro, but I think Beast Canyon has crossed a line where it's just too large for me now. You could still take a Ghost Canyon as carry-on on a flight no problem, or shove it in a backpack for a bike commute - but this just is just so chunky and boxy, it looks too much like something that belongs on a desk.Can I buy the new compute element card and put it in a Ghost Canyon case?
Will there be an updated Xeon compute element? I'm running mine as a NAS box with a ZFS drive array connected via Thunderbolt, and ZFS wants the ECC RAM.
Spunjji - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
"Can I buy the new compute element card and put it in a Ghost Canyon case?"I've been wondering that - I thought part of the point of the Element was to enable that sort of upgrade, but then I guess you'd lose the PCIe 4.0 compatibility
damianrobertjones - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
Question: Can you purchase (I believe you can) JUST the element and place it into the previous model's chassis? That's what I was led to believe with this 'supposed' upgradability. If not, then possibly avoid this machine as there won't (probably) be an upgrade path. I did own the previous gen.Question 2: What the heck is going on with the smaller Nuc 11 units? I cannot seem to buy one ANYWHERE (u.k.).
mode_13h - Monday, August 2, 2021 - link
I think Tiger Lake is simply in high-demand. Intel likely prioritizes notebook OEMs above its own NUCs. Most NUC buyers probably don't know or care about the difference between 10th gen and 11th gen, so it's less bad to undersupply that market. Of course, this is all speculation.vol.2 - Tuesday, August 3, 2021 - link
I'm assuming they use the cheapest fans they can get away with. I'm sure the noise would improve dramatically if you replaced them with some better ones.Oxford Guy - Wednesday, August 11, 2021 - link
I’m sure the laws of physics are malleable.JoeDuarte - Tuesday, August 3, 2021 - link
1. It would help to benchmark them with more realistic specs, and consistent specs across the different SFF computers you included. 16 GB of RAM is too little for something this high-end, with an 8-core i9 Tiger Lake CPU, and a new-gen Nvidia 3060 GPU. (And you had 32 GB of in the Zotac...) 512 GB of SSD is too small for this kind of build, and there are big differences in SSD performance between 512 GB units and 1 TB+ sizes. (And you have different SSD models and sizes across the tested computers, ruining the validity of the results.)2. Intel's prices are still a bummer. I love the idea of a NUC, and of these X Canyon big-NUCs, but their prices and availability have always ruled them out. It's just worth it for what you get. We have to add several hundred dollars to that $1,350 price for this model. And hundreds more for a display, keyboard, and mouse. It's easily a $2,000 build, probably more like $2,300, all before taxes.
It makes more sense to go to PCPartPicker and build out a compact PC using one of those cuboid cases. They're a lot bigger than NUCs, but much smaller than mid-towers.
3. Intel really struggles with naming and model numbers. The NUCs are a messy jumble of letters and digits. And Intel commits the sin of having multiple names for the same thing, and you have to keep track of numerous confusing terms and their relation to each other. e.g.:
-- Goldmont vs. Apollo Lake, using Skylake arch, vs. Braxton vs. Willow Trail
-- Cherryview vs. Cherry Trail vs. Airmont
-- Beast Canyon vs. Bean Canyon vs. NUC vs. NUC11BTMi9
-- NUC11BTMi9 vs NUC11DBBi9, where the former is supposed to be a computer and the latter is a "Compute Element"
Nothing about the substring BTMi9 screams "computer", and nothing about the substring DBBi9 screams "Compute Element". It's all such a mess, and it makes it hard to shop for and buy Intel's products. If you don't already know the exact model number of what you want, there's no way to know from the model numbers that you encounter what you're getting or where it fits into the larger context of NUC models. These are things that any organization should be able to fix – clean, consistent naming, and clean, concise, and non-ugly model numbers.
mode_13h - Wednesday, August 4, 2021 - link
> It makes more sense to go to PCPartPicker and> build out a compact PC using one of those cuboid cases.
Except you cannot buy a Tiger Lake-H CPU. They're only sold in BGA and mostly found in laptops.
Unlike the Gemini/Jasper/Elkhart Lake CPUs (which are also BGA and often found in Chromebooks), you probably can't buy a mITX motherboard with them pre-installed, either.
JoeDuarte - Thursday, August 12, 2021 - link
I didn't think of that, though it wouldn't matter in my case. Whenever I build out a system at PCPartPicker I choose the Core i7-11700 or one of the Zen 3 chips – I think it's called a 5600 or 5800, but I forget. I don't think Tiger Lake-H would be an improvement from those, just maybe lower power.The GPUs are decent for integrated, and that has made me lean toward Intel because of the difficulty in finding current gen discrete GPUs like the 3060 Ti, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet. The Zen 3s don't have integrated GPUs, which would leave me without a GPU unless I settled for an obsolete 1650 or something. I'd rather live with the Intel 750 for a spell until the powerhouses are available at normal prices.
mode_13h - Friday, August 13, 2021 - link
> I choose the Core i7-11700 ... I don't think Tiger Lake-H would be an improvement> from those, just maybe lower power.
There are some notable differences. The desktop 11th gen CPUs are Rocket Lake, built on Intel's 14 nm++++ process, using Cypress Cove cores. Those cores are a 14 nm back-port of Ice Lake's (launched in 2019) Sunny Cove.
The Laptop & NUC 11th gen CPUs are Tiger Lake, which use Intel's 10 nm+++ node (also called 10 nm SF). They use Willow Cove cores, which are a generation newer than Ice Lake's (and therefore Rocket Lake's). However, the generational gains of the cores were modest, with the main difference being that Tiger Lake clocks higher.
Now, if you want to compare spec-for-spec, try this:
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compar...
The main thing that shows is that Tiger Lake-H has 50% more cache and the top-end model clocks lower. However, being a laptop chip, the top-end model also has a TDP of just 65 W. So, it's probably better to compare it with the fastest 65 W Rocket Lake:
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compar...
According to that, Tiger Lake-H is able to offer a much better Base clock, though its turbo is still lower. That's probably because its peak power is also lower, again being a laptop chip. Furthermore, clock speeds don't tell the whole story. In the end, specs are no match for actual benchmarks:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intels-enthusias...
These benchmarks show Rocket Lake pulling ahead in GPU tests, probably due to its faster turbo. However, when it comes to CPU-intensive tests, we see Tiger Lake hold its own.
Unfortunately, not many people seem to have run that exact comparison. Most are either comparing with the top Rocket Lake SKU or just other SFF PCs. If anyone else has benchmarks of the i9-11900KB vs. i9-11900, please share.
I guess the point is that if you care about power/noise/size, this NUC Extreme seems pretty compelling. If you're willing to spend a bit more and go for a top-of-the-line desktop, then you should probably fare better with Rocket Lake.
I wish Tiger Lake-H came in a LGA-1200 socketed version, so we could really see it stretch its legs. I'll bet it would beat even i9-11900KF by a noticeable amount.
> The Zen 3s don't have integrated GPUs
They do now! Check out the new Ryzen 5000G models!
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16824/amd-ryzen-7-5...
They're decent, for an integrated GPU, but not on par with the RTX 3060 in this NUC Extreme.
mode_13h - Wednesday, August 4, 2021 - link
> And Intel commits the sin of having multiple names for the same thing,> and you have to keep track of numerous confusing terms and their
> relation to each other. e.g.:
>
> -- Goldmont vs. Apollo Lake, using Skylake arch, vs. Braxton vs. Willow Trail
> -- Cherryview vs. Cherry Trail vs. Airmont
Goldmont is the core. Apollo Lake is the SoC. The "Mont" cores are the low-power ones. They've been very consistent about that: Silvermont, Airmont, Goldmont, Goldmont+, Tremont, and soon Gracemont.
Starting with Ice Lake, the big cores are named after coves, so far.
And the "Trail" names seem to be system designs, or something?
The one naming convention that really got out of control is the "lakes". Those seem to have very little consistent meaning. I think they have a few Lakes that aren't even CPUs/SoCs.
> Nothing about the substring BTMi9 screams "computer"
It's just a model number, dude. Just type it into a search engine and look it up. And some places I've seen will at least say it's a NUC compute element, although that requires you to know how one differs from a regular NUC.
> It's all such a mess
I will agree that Intel's product line is full of subtle variations, like NUCs with one vs. two Ethernet ports. I was staring at two Tiger Lake NUC listings, trying to figure out the difference, until I noticed that.
Oxford Guy - Wednesday, August 11, 2021 - link
‘It is likely that the production BIOS will need to sacrifice some noise levels for better thermals.’Haha.
Hixbot - Saturday, August 14, 2021 - link
I point this out on all SFF reviews on this site, but it seems it falls on deaf ears: We need noise measurements and comparisons.(pun intended)
yacoub35 - Saturday, August 21, 2021 - link
Agree - noise measurements please!yacoub35 - Saturday, August 28, 2021 - link
Are the "case" fans on this easily replaceable if they fail?