Intel Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX Review: NUC 9 Extreme Realizes the SFF Dream

#1

Post by pavelmark » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 12:18 AM UTC

Intel Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX Review: NUC 9 Extreme Realizes the SFF Dream
anandtech.com

Re: Intel Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX Review: NUC 9 Extreme Realizes the SFF Dream

#2

Post by rasz » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 12:31 PM UTC

SFF Dream is 'laptopification' of desktop computing. Overpriced screenless closed system laptops. No more incremental upgrades, instead inadequate cooling, power throttling, dongles and converters galore, vendor/ecosystem lockin. $2800 for last generation CPU, 16GB of RAM, and an RTX 2070.

Reminds me of https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

Re: Intel Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX Review: NUC 9 Extreme Realizes the SFF Dream

#3

Post by kup0 » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

Pricing on this is ridiculous. Build your own SFF system using MiniITX and save the money.

Re: Intel Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX Review: NUC 9 Extreme Realizes the SFF Dream

#4

Post by gowld » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

rasz wrote: post #2

SFF Dream is 'laptopification' of desktop computing. Overpriced screenless closed system laptops. No more incremental upgrades, instead inadequate cooling, power throttling, dongles and converters galore, vendor/ecosystem lockin. $2800 for last generation CPU, 16GB of RAM, and an RTX 2070. Reminds me of https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

This NUC has upgradable RAM, Disk, GPU, and CPU backplane.

It's a 8core 2.6GHz 45W CPU, not last generation, with lots of ports.

If you don't want a small cool powerful machine, it's not for you

Re: Intel Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX Review: NUC 9 Extreme Realizes the SFF Dream

#5

Post by gowld » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

kup0 wrote: post #3

Pricing on this is ridiculous. Build your own SFF system using MiniITX and save the money.

What if I don't want to build my own?

Re: Intel Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX Review: NUC 9 Extreme Realizes the SFF Dream

#6

Post by kup0 » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #5

kup0 wrote: post #3

Pricing on this is ridiculous. Build your own SFF system using MiniITX and save the money.

What if I don't want to build my own?

Actually, you know, I'm going to pull back on my original post a bit. I didn't realize they were using a $500+ Optane drive in here and not in some of the other systems they compared to... that does inflate the price quite a bit.

Still, it seems even the barebones being $1500 is a lot. Not sure where the majority of the cost is coming from otherwise without the Optane and GPU. Still seems like a decent premium, but not as exorbitant as I originally thought. Especially since there are some trade-offs (like the x8 PCI-e, etc).

If you don't feel like building one and money is not a concern- then this machine is likely perfect for you. No problem with that at all. In fact, if this machine was more affordable barebones, I'd be interested myself.