I was looking for an Intel NUC 13 i5 since I have a very limited workspace at home and to my understanding Intel has a very decent quality offering and Linux support.
Which alternatives would people suggest?
Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
281–290 of 526 posts
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sure Apple sells the Mac Mini. But the entire Mac line is only 10% of Apple’s revenue and most of that is laptops The 10% figure is spot-on and that really threw me - I was expecting something like 25-30%: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY22_Q4_Consolidated_Fin... It’s unnerving that Apple is effectively dependent on a single product line to subsidise everything: Apple Silicon must have cost tens (hundreds?) o…
> Apple has seemingly intentionally priced themselves out of reach of smaller and indie creative-types I don't think this take makes any sense. Sure, you can spec out an insanely expensive Mac today. That's always been the case. But with Apple Silicon, there's actually never been a better price to performance ratio at the bottom end of their lineup, perhaps in Apple's entire history. An entry-level Mac Mini or MacBoo…
> I don't think this take makes any sense. Sure, you can spec out an insanely expensive Mac today. That's always been the case.
Yes, of course - but historically Apple's MacPros (and G3, G4, and G5 PowerMacs before that) had a fairly reasonable entry-prices - but in recent years (especially since 2013) the entry-price of Apple's workstation-tier machines has risen sharply over inflation:
In 2005, Apple advertised[1] the PowerMac G5 for sale at $1999 - adjusted for inflation that's $3100 today, but today's equivalent: the MacPro, sells at an eyewatering $6,999[2]. While in 2013, that $1999 adjusted-for-inflation would be $2400 but the 2013 "trashcan" MacPro started at $3000. Today that would be $3900 - which itself is roughly half the current $6999.
As with the Vision Pro, Apple's pricing is intended to limit demand which accomodates Apple's low-volume, US-domestic manufacturing of the Mac Pro (and everyone else can just get an iMac Pro or Mac Studio) - but this risks making Apple's workstation-class machines so inaccessible they never develop an audience, and the companies that write software for workstation-scenarios (oil-and-gas? AutoDesk? etc) will likely avoid the hassle of porting Win32 or *nix number-crunching software to Apple's hardware. Overall, it feels like Apple is trying to contrive and stage-manage their own workstation swansong - it will be beautiful, but is it wise?
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20050228225922/http://store.appl...
[2]: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-pro
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Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But with Apple Silicon, there's actually never been a better price to performance ratio at the bottom end of their lineup, perhaps in Apple's entire history. An entry-level Mac Mini or MacBook Air can give an indie creator tremendous power and performance per dollar. The frustrating thing is just how quickly value decays with Apple's pricing strategy. When it comes to the Mac Mini/Studio, outside of some extremely…
Yeah, I can agree with you that Apple's general pricing ladder is annoying. But I'll also say as a software engineer, the MacBook Pro 16 with an M1 Max is the best tool I've ever used for my work. I dock into a thunderbolt setup with a couple high resolution monitors. I have docker running. Often multiple IDE instances with large codebases. Multiple Chrome windows with dozens if not hundreds of tabs. Zoom calls runni…
> but I can tell you I'd pay far more than I did for this quality of a machine.
I'd buy a MacBook Pro myself, sure - except I. need. a. forward-delete. key.
Sorry, but Fn+Backspace just isn't acceptable to me.
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#284that is a bad news for SimulaVR - https://www.reddit.com/r/intelnuc/comments/uxf6g7/simulavr_i...
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t this basically the innovator’s dilemma? You can call it focusing the core business, but you can also call it dropping investment in long term cash flows.
That's not the innovator's dilemma. The dilemma is when you have tech A: Profitable and large. Tech B: Unprofitable and small, but the tech itself improves at a faster rate than tech A. GPUs were their true dilemma. GPUs were only good for gamers, who are picky and extremely value sensitive. Whereas CPUs could be sold to datacenters and enterprises, very high profit margins. Hence CPUs were core at intel, no one has…
> NUCs are not some rapidly improving tech, they are just some minor market that is profitable but never that large.
Everything doesn't have to be
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#286I thought the NUC12 Extreme gaming/minitower NUC was a nice machine. Seemed to be a decent value for performance in its small form factor.
What are some good third party equivalents to the NUC12 and (larger) NUC13?
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
> BTW there are other vendors like Beelink that make semi decent tiny computers and I have one of those as my teenage kids pc,works just fine. The issue is, Intel's aiming more upmarket (based on their pricing) for something that doesn't offer a lot more. Intel's done interesting/fun things, such as building the entire motherboard into a single slot sized unit, but going out and buying a Beelink is a better propositi…
I think its a bigger issue that the next gen NUCs will be good enough to cannibalize the rest of the desktop market. Look at the recent amd offerings and the mac mini with M1. They can replace my destop fully. The only reason I have a desktop now is for gaming.
Except for gaming, the average Office and Media Consumption user has had no real need for a new machine in over 10 years.
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I can agree with you that Apple's general pricing ladder is annoying. But I'll also say as a software engineer, the MacBook Pro 16 with an M1 Max is the best tool I've ever used for my work. I dock into a thunderbolt setup with a couple high resolution monitors. I have docker running. Often multiple IDE instances with large codebases. Multiple Chrome windows with dozens if not hundreds of tabs. Zoom calls runni…
> but I can tell you I'd pay far more than I did for this quality of a machine. I'd buy a MacBook Pro myself, sure - except I. need. a. forward-delete. key. Sorry, but Fn+Backspace just isn't acceptable to me.
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#289What is a solid alternstive to NUCs?
Re: Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think its a bigger issue that the next gen NUCs will be good enough to cannibalize the rest of the desktop market. Look at the recent amd offerings and the mac mini with M1. They can replace my destop fully. The only reason I have a desktop now is for gaming.
That's not happening. The new high end application for PCs is running AIs locally. No way you can fit a 4090 in a NUC, the GPU itself is larger than a NUC, heat dissipation requirements cannot be 'optimized' away.
Unless you are also gaming, the AI machine does not need to be your desktop. But can sit comfortably in your basement, chugging along 24/7 with no compromise adequat cooling.