Tiny PCs make numerous sense in properties and places of work the place there is not sufficient house for full-sized desktop towers. Not everybody wants top-end {hardware} with elaborate cooling mechanisms and a number of laborious drives – and far of the amount inside in the present day’s PC cupboards is definitely empty because of elevated integration. If you will get all of your work achieved on a laptop computer, you are already utilizing elements that may be packed into a lot smaller areas. So why aren’t tiny PCs, equivalent to Intel’s NUC lineup, extra standard?
It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg state of affairs. Not lots of people know that such choices exist, and retailers do not make such PCs available to retail patrons. As such, there’s not numerous demand from both finish. One other issue is that these PCs are typically bought barebones with no RAM or storage – the consumer has so as to add their very own, after which set up an OS and set every little thing up. Such units are broadly utilized in places of work the place they’re deployed in giant numbers, and so they’re additionally nice for powering kiosks and enormous info shows. It is a area of interest section, however f you need to discover one for private use, it is not inconceivable.
The NUC 11 Professional can be unobtrusive on any desk, or will be mounted behind a suitable monitor
Intel’s NUC (Subsequent Unit of Computing) model has been round for practically a decade now. The vary has expanded to cater to varied niches spanning every little thing from gaming to fanless industrial deployments. Through the years, we have seen tiny HDMI sticks, dockable playing cards, modular gaming PCs, and even barebones laptop computer kits. At present, we’ve a comparatively easy mannequin for overview, however it’s loaded up with a contemporary eleventh Gen Intel Core CPU that includes built-in Iris Xe graphics. We will see how such a PC can match into folks’s lives and whether or not it could possibly be best for you.
Intel NUC 11 Professional NUC11TNKi5 design and setup
From the skin, the NUC 11 Professional (codenamed Tiger Canyon) appears like a lot any latest NUC mannequin, which is not any shock since this stuff are supposed to be utilitarian and can often be tucked out of sight anyway. The physique measures 117x112x37mm which is roughly 4.5 inches sq. and about as tall as the typical desktop mouse. Bigger fashions can be found, with house to accommodate a 2.5-inch SATA laborious drive or SSD, or extra highly effective {hardware}.
You may place the NUC 11 Professional on a desk, and it is going to be fairly unobtrusive. A VESA mounting bracket is included within the field so it’s also possible to screw it to the again of a suitable monitor or use all kinds of industry-standard mounts. You could possibly additionally simply use sturdy Velcro or double-sided tape – it is not too heavy, at simply over half a kilo. You’ll have to cope with a slightly giant exterior energy brick, although.
Regardless of its diminutive dimension, there are numerous choices for connectivity. The entrance panel has two USB 3.2 Gen1 (5Gbps) Kind-A ports. and on the again you will discover the DC energy inlet; another USB 3.2 Kind-A port; one legacy USB 2.0 port; one Thunderbolt 4 Kind-C and one Thunderbolt 3 Kind-C port (each supporting DisplayPort 1.4 video output and 40Gbps USB4 information); two HDMI 2.0b ports with CEC; and a couple of.5Gigabit Ethernet. Unusually, there is not any 3.5mm audio socket so you will need to route audio by means of HDMI or DisplayPort, or go wi-fi. Sadly, you possibly can’t run this mini PC utilizing USB Kind-C energy supply.
Consider the NUC 11 Professional as the heart of a laptop computer with out an hooked up show, battery, keyboard or trackpad
You may technically have as much as 4 shows on the similar time, both utilizing all 4 video outputs (HDMI and Thunderbolt) or by daisy-chaining Thunderbolt-compatible displays. All 4 can run at 4K 3840×2160 and at 60Hz. Alternatively, you could possibly have two of these plus one 5120×3200 60Hz show. The Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 ports are completely different by way of supported PCIe information charges and a few feature-level performance, however there are not any exterior markings telling you which of them one is which.
The underside panel comes off for those who loosen the captive screws in every of the 4 rubber legs. You can entry the 2 SO-DIMM RAM slots with no hassle. There’s a normal M.2 2280 slot (which is keyed just for NVMe SSDs) and a second, shorter M.2 2242 slot which can be utilized for a SATA SSD or PCIe x1 module. There are additionally two inner USB 2.0 headers and even a serial port header for hobbyists to use. The highest panel will be popped off with a fingernail however nothing beneath it’s accessible – solely the inside fan shroud and Wi-Fi antennas will be seen.
Intel NUC 11 Professional NUC11TNKi5 specs and options
On the coronary heart of this explicit NUC 11 Professional is a Core i5-1135G7 processor, from Intel’s eleventh Gen ‘Tiger Lake’ household. This CPU is especially meant to be used in slim laptops and has a nominal 15W TDP, however will be scaled between 12W and 28W and Intel has chosen the latter choice right here. This takes benefit of the higher cooling that is potential in a chassis like this, in comparison with a slim laptop computer, and can enable it to run at peak speeds for longer. The Core i5-1135G7 has 4 cores with Hyper-Threading, and on this implementation, the CPU will run at a 2.4GHz base velocity with a single-core increase velocity of as much as 4.2GHz.
The built-in Iris Xe GPU is a giant draw right here – that is one in every of Intel’s massive pushes for its cellular eleventh Gen CPUs and is constructed off a brand new structure that has been taking form for years. It guarantees a major efficiency bounce over Intel’s earlier built-in GPUs, which have had a status for nearly having the ability to cowl the fundamentals. The G7 suffix on the CPU’s mannequin quantity signifies that the GPU is comparatively highly effective, with 80 execution items.
You get a stunning quantity and number of helpful ports on the again
Along with the ports listed above, you additionally get Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5. As much as 64GB of DDR4-3200 RAM is supported throughout the 2 SO-DIMM slots. 7.1 channel audio is supported, however solely over HDMI or DisplayPort.
Intel lists just a few different unusual options – the NUC 11 Professional is claimed to be appropriate for 24×7 operation, and might run “headless”, ie with solely an emulated show. It could possibly additionally deal with DC enter voltage fluctuations to some extent. You may discover just a little nub on the again to anchor the DC energy twine to so it would not get yanked out (or stolen), and a Kensington safety slot on the left. The guarantee is three years, and Intel additionally lists a assured three-year availability window. These items all cater to the industrial audience, greater than the typical residence consumer.
Intel NUC 11 Professional NUC11TNKi5 efficiency and utilization
Intel’s NUC packing containers are typically bought barebones, with no RAM or storage. It is as much as system integrators to configure and resell them, or for patrons so as to add their very own {hardware} and working system. For the aim of this overview, Intel loaded up the NUC 11 Professional overview unit with a single 16GB DDR4-3200 Kingston ValueRAM module and a 512GB Transcend SATA SSD within the M.2 2242 slot, with Home windows 10 already put in. This was a shock, contemplating that an NVMe SSD in the usual M.2 slot would have perfored much better, however that was left clean. For those who select to make use of this slot (which you’ll in all probability need to, given the rarity of retail M.2 2242 SSDs), your SSD will sit proper on high of the Wi-Fi module, which could have an effect on thermals.
After permitting Home windows 10 to obtain all the newest updates, I started with benchmark checks. The Core i5 CPU put up a good present in PCMark’s commonplace and Excessive runs, with scores of 4,543 and three,853 respectively. It additionally scored 523 and a couple of,166 respectively in Cinebench R20’s single-threaded and multi-threaded checks. POVRay ran its render benchmark in 2 minutes, 29 seconds, whereas VRay’s CPU and GPU scores had been 6,229 and 33 respectively. The NUC 11 Professional additionally managed 1,385 and 4,555 factors in Geekbench 5’s single-core and multi-core runs. These numbers are predictably just a little under what we noticed from the MSI Status 14 Evo laptop computer, powered by an eleventh Gen Core i7-1185G7 based mostly on the identical structure and with the identical Iris Xe built-in GPU, earlier this yr.
The bottom pops off simply to disclose the 2 SODIMM slots, M.2 2242 and 2280 slots, and modular Wi-Fi adapter
If you wish to evaluate scores in opposition to the current-gen Mac mini, we will take a look at some browser-based cross-platform scores. The NUC 11 Professional obtained 249 in WebXprt and 165.321 in Jetstream 2, in comparison with 286 and 177.110 respectively for Apple’s in-house M1 processor.
The preinstalled SATA SSD would not exhibit the total potential of the Tiger Lake CPU, which helps PCIe Gen4 speeds. CrystalDiskMark reported sequential reads and writes of solely 560.1MBps and 507.9MBps however this PC is able to significantly better. It additionally took 2 minutes, 59 seconds to compress a 3.24GB folder of varied information utilizing 7zip, and 1 minute, 4 seconds to transcode a 1.3GB AVI file to H.265.
As for graphics, you should not anticipate to run heavy 3D video games. 3DMark’s Time Spy and Night time Raid checks confirmed scores of 1,196 and 10,177 respectively. The Unigine Superposition take a look at managed 1,480 factors working at 1080p at Medium high quality. Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which isn’t very latest anymore, solely ran at a median of 17fps at 1280×720 utilizing its Medium preset, which made it unplayable. Far Cry 5 averaged 24fps at its Regular preset on the similar decision. You may need to restrict your self to a lot less complicated video games or experiment with cloud streaming choices in the event that they turn out to be viable in India sooner or later.
In on a regular basis use, the NUC 11 Professional was snappy and responsive. It ran productiveness apps and Net browsers with dozens of tabs open, and the expertise was completely clean. As benchmarks present, this {hardware} is not the quickest at heavy content material creation duties or gaming, however it’s high quality for widespread utilization conditions. Streaming HD and 4K video was no downside. With regular use, you will not hear the cooling fan spin up in any respect. Even when the NUC 11 Professional was beneath heavy load, I used to be solely nearly capable of hear a slight hum as scorching air was pushed out the massive vent on the again. The plastic physique will get solely about as heat as you’d anticipate any laptop computer to.
Seems to be may not be a precedence, however efficiency is sweet sufficient for on a regular basis use instances
Verdict
A tiny PC will be rather more versatile and cost-effective than a laptop computer or all-in-one – you do not have to throw out a wonderfully useful monitor, keyboard, trackpad, and so on while you want a efficiency improve. You may as well select your personal RAM and storage, and make the most of a number of giant desktop displays. It is an awesome center floor – no cumbersome desktop tower, however it could possibly’t be used on the go – and that needs to be simply high quality for loads of folks of their properties and places of work.
The NUC 11 Professional specifically gives all these conveniences, plus a lot of ports and connectivity, and cheap improve potential. It is clearly designed extra for industrial deployment than residence or shopper use, however that does not imply it could not serve for all of your on a regular basis productiveness, leisure and communication wants – with perhaps even just a little gentle gaming thrown in.
The massive challenges are availability and value. Whereas corporations equivalent to Gigabyte with its NUC-based Brix line and Zotac with its Zbox and Mek mini PCs do promote on to retail patrons, Apple’s significantly bigger Mac mini is maybe one of the best identified such machine. Asus, Lenovo and others goal places of work and faculties with their industrial fashions however a few of these do discover their strategy to retail channels. There is a market to be tapped, for barebones in addition to absolutely constructed mini PCs, and Intel ought to actually take into consideration selling the NUC lineup both immediately or by means of system integrators.
It is potential to search out the NUC 11 Professional on-line and order it, however do take a look at the number of different fashions accessible – some with 2.5-inch SATA bays, some with extra connectivity, and a few which might be simply the naked motherboard to be used in your personal tasks.
As for the value, the NUC 11 Professional sells for practically Rs. 40,000 (barely much less for those who’re shopping for in bulk) and you will have to think about the price of your RAM, storage, OS, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. For what it’s going to all come to, you could possibly purchase a good laptop computer, so any shopping for determination should come right down to your particular person wants.
Intel NUC 11 Professional (NUC11TNKi5)
Worth: Rs. 38,972 (barebones)
Professionals
Good general efficiency Numerous ports and connectivity Compact, quiet, and versatile Easy accessibility to RAM and storage
Cons
Comparatively costly and laborious to search out Cumbersome exterior energy adapter
Scores (out of 5)
Design: 3
Efficiency: 4
Worth for Cash: 4
Total: 4
