Intel has officially closed its Intel NUC business division, putting an end to development of some impressive but often expensive and niche mini PC designs.
The Intel NUC 9 Extreme that we reviewed back in 2020 was a typical example of the products released by the division, with it offering an impressively compact PC design using a custom motherboard design partnered of course with an Intel CPU. Sold as a barebones unit, it could accommodate surprisingly large an powerful graphics cards and offered solid performance. However, with it costing around $1,600 for a unit without a graphics card and around $2,500 for a unit with an RTX 2070, you can perhaps see why they never really took off, even though Intel also offered much more affordable, less powerful options.
First reported by ServeTheHome, the news was confirmed in a statement from Intel saying:
‘We have decided to stop direct investment in the Next Unit of Compute (NUC) Business and pivot our strategy to enable our ecosystem partners to continue NUC innovation and growth. This decision will not impact the remainder of Intel’s Client Computing Group (CCG) or Network and Edge Computing (NEX) businesses. Furthermore, we are working with our partners and customers to ensure a smooth transition and fulfillment of all our current commitments.’
It’s a shame to see the end of NUC, as it was one of the relatively few areas of the PC market that really pushed forward with new ideas for small form factor systems. You can still buy plenty of the systems now, though, with a wide range of models available via Amazon.
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