In fantasy crossover dramas such as "Mythology", the ancients were always confused and aweed when facing the small square box of mobile phones, but at the same time there was a little excitement.
For a completely unfamiliar, but functionally rich product, able to play sound, people and scenery into a palm-sized box, the ancients were afraid that this small box would bring adverse effects, but also rejoiced in a variety of fantasy and interesting gameplay.
▲ Travel to ancient selfies. Image from: Douban
Coincidentally, this is quite similar to the concept of the future that the tech community is promoting, the "black box" computer.
A black-box computer is an ideal computer model that has a beautiful appearance and at the same time provides people with the various functions they need, without knowing how it works internally.
Today's iPhone, iPad, and, more recently, Mac Studio are all products under this philosophy, and their common features are rich in features, miniaturization, and integration.
As Apple's former partner and now competitor, Intel is actually doing the same thing - making the computer "small", and even compared to the bright metal aluminum shell of the Mac Studio now, the Intel NUC computer is more in line with the image of the small black box.
Square inches, a small black box in the palm of your hand
Futuristic, ideal form, black box computer has naturally become the palm pearl pursued by major technology companies, which is not only a symbol of technical and design strength, but also represents the advanced nature of products, which means a broad market space.
NuC microcomputer is developed in this context, in order to ensure market sales, Intel's marketing department requires this computer to be as light, thin and small as possible.
▲ Huge chassis
It is not easy to achieve this series of requirements, the stronger the computer performance, the higher the power consumption, the greater the power supply and heat dissipation module required, plus a variety of transmission interfaces, and it becomes a simple choice to become bigger.
The emergence of thin and light notebooks proves that the miniaturization of computers is feasible, but how small should it be, how small can it ensure performance and stability?
In this way, under the pull of the marketing department and the engineers, the size of the original NUC was set at 4×4 inches in length and width, and 1.5 inches in height, and equipped with a barebones system, people could easily take apart the installation store or install the Windows computer operating system.
Convert the size of the NUC microcomputer, that is, it is more than 10 cm long and wide, no more than 4 cm thick, and it can be easily grasped with one hand, just as large as the small storage box that can be found everywhere in the home.
The earthy black and lightweight shape allow the NUC to adapt to most environments, hanging on the monitor to form an alternative "all-in-one machine", or a small inconspicuous black box on the desk.
NuC is so simple that it's easy to ignore it, but at the same time it's a computer with a wealth of features, which is almost a successful landing of the concept of a black-box computer.
Since then, the 4×4 inches have become the classic model of nucs, and almost every year Intel will crammed the latest processor chips and integrated graphics into this small black box to provide medium to light office capabilities.
This simple little black box is also gradually appearing in more and more people's homes, companies, and even schools.
Go higher
Although Intel crammed the processor, power management chip, and many USB interfaces needed for the entire PC in a narrow space like 4× inches, the small size also limited the computing power, and the 4×4 classic NUC was only able to handle moderate and mild work by default.
The turning point came in 2018, when Intel began to move closer to a higher-performance, more comprehensive experience.
At that time, Intel unexpectedly reached a cooperation with AMD, and inserted a special "fusion chip" into the NUC, encapsulating the 8th generation Core processor chip and amD Radeon RX Vega Mobile In the same chip.
The NUC computer, which has both Intel and AMD genes, was eventually named Skull Canyon, and the package design not only provided it with good image performance, but also made the processor and graphics fusion form smaller.
The Skull Canyon NUC computer has an aspect ratio of only 9×6 inches, almost the same size as a book, and in the 3D Mark graphics test, its running score is equivalent to 75% of the mainstream independent graphics card Nvidia GTX 1060 that year, which is very close to playing the AAA game masterpiece.
Good performance, small body quickly made skull canyon NUC in the gamer community, to know that it is not only a fully complete Windows computer, the body is even smaller than the game console such as PS4, almost a portable version of the game console.
Because of this, Skull Canyon goes to a variety of places.
Faisal Habib, nuc's product director, said in an interview with PCworld that products such as Skull Canyon NUC are gradually emerging in Internet cafes and e-sports hotels, and it is suitable for playing games in hotels or small rooms.
▲ Only one book size
Another group of geeks who love tossing and turning have also taken a fancy to the Skull Canyon NUC, the combination of Intel processors and AMD Vega graphics, making this product one of the good choices for "black Apple" systems, Windows and macOS dual systems are common operations.
With the development of gallium nitride technology, in recent years, some people have begun to try to replace the large and bulky original charger in Skull Canyon with a lighter and smaller gallium nitride charger.
▲ Skull Canyon charger is large
Minicomputer computers are not necessarily the best choice, but people's obsession with it has also driven the development of technology and design to a certain extent, and to complete such high-performance products, the chip and internal stacking design of the machine must be improved.
Bigger or smaller
The Skeleton Canyon NUC became famous among the player base and directly pushed Intel to make efforts in the field of high-performance minicomputer computers.
But the black box is always an idealized computer concept, the progress of technology is not so fast, desktop graphics card performance is growing rapidly at the same time, the power increase is not small, so the configuration of large fan cooling naturally becomes the default choice.
In this way, the NUC computer became larger.
▲ Dragon Canyon NUC
Intel NUC Dragon Canyon, equipped with the latest 12th generation Core processor i9-12900, has reached 8L in size, the performance is still very strong, the internal structure is compact, but compared with the small chassis in the industry, the size advantage is getting smaller.
On the other hand, to maintain a compact body, the space left for graphics cards inside the fuselage is becoming more and more tense, the current top flagship discrete graphics card RTX 3090 has reached 31.3 cm in length, NUC product director Faisal Habib said in an interview that NUC computers can no longer hold such a large graphics card.
In contrast, the mainstream discrete graphics card RTX 3060 is a good partner for the NUC series.
In April this year, Intel announced the discrete graphics series Arc, which made many gamers excited, whether it can once again replicate the success of Skull Canyon, recombine the processor and graphics card, and return to a volume of about 1L.
Faisal Habib, NUC's Head of Product, answered this question head-on in an interview:
We've had some explorations, like soldering desktop-level discrete graphics cards together and trying other ways to dissipate heat and cool, but that's not the right path.
The implication is that there will be no fusion, although the NUC maintains the characteristics of the minicomputer, but in the high-performance products, Intel still maintains a certain degree of upgradeability, replacing memory, graphics, motherboards with chips, etc.
In contrast, in the exploration of minicomputers, Apple did come out on top.
The M1 Ultra in Mac Stduio combines processors with graphics cards and connects them to each other with unified memory, creating a high-performance, power-per-watt minicomputer in an all-in-one way.
This 7.7-inch-long and wide computer is the perfect way to do what the Power Mac G4 Cube hasn't been able to do in 22 years, and it's closer to the ideal black-box computer concept.
▲Power Mac G4 Cube and Mac Studio. Image credit: MacWorld
But at the same time, Mac Stduio also gave up upgradeability, NUC is larger but subsequently upgradeable, in the process of exploring minicomputers, Apple and NUC almost went the opposite way.
Open the black box
The "black box" computer concept describes the future computer, which was originally a box that people did not need to understand how it worked to use it, which is obviously an idealized concept aimed at user experience.
Jobs and Apple are clearly big believers in this philosophy, as can be seen in products such as the iPad, iPhone, and Mac Studio.
▲ The small box of the mobile phone carries too many functions
NuC did not, the original most in line with the image of the black box, in the first 10 years after the announcement of today, gradually to the reverse of the concept of black box computer - open the black box.
NuC is actually more popular in the corporate and academic worlds than the gamer community, where performance is no longer the only criterion.
Small, inexpensive, and quiet, the 4×4 Classic NUC Small Black Box pc can be placed in a variety of places, or even used only as a single use.
Faisal Habib, nuc product director, found that some people are even willing to put 26 classic NUC microcomputers on the desktop in a row, which are small and non-occupying, low noise, rich interfaces, low power consumption, and each one is used as a single purpose.
On the other hand, the NUC team took apart the "black box" and provided a miniaturized NUC board or a higher performance chip assembly card, which allowed the NUC to enter more places, Faisal Habib gave a very vivid example:
Almost every fast food restaurant you go to has a small touchscreen, and if you open the back, you might see a NUC inside.
▲ Small NUC motherboard with chip. Image credit: IDC
For high-performance PCs, nucs can be modularly assembled, providing customization in a compact chassis, replacing memory, graphics, and graphics with Intel processors.
This is not only reflected in the NUC series of products, but even other OEM pc manufacturers can directly use nuC as a basis to customize and launch a variety of micro computers.
Since the release of the first NUC in 2012, this series of product styles has exceeded 600, including classic 4×4 small black box computers, as well as circuit boards and assembly chassis forms that abandon this futuristic shape.
The abundance of forms allows NUCs to meet different needs, even as people's needs change.
At this time, NUC is like an extension of Intel chips, providing better standards, manufacturers can freely customize and transform, a high degree of freedom, customizability and upgradability, but also let NUC out of the category of ordinary consumer computers, into more fields.
In the process of chasing the concept of "black box" microcomputers and exploring minicomputer computers, Apple and Intel have gone in different directions, and the advantages and disadvantages of the two are not immediately concluded.
More importantly, whether you enter the product ecosystem to accept the rules, or are you eager to "toss" and meet specific needs.