UCFF
Intel's Meteor Lake series of processors has had a drawn-out launch since its details were officially presented in September 2023. The series marks Intel's foray into the consumer market with a tile-based chiplet configuration held together with Foveros packaging. Similar to Tiger Lake, the focus of Meteor Lake has primarily been on the mobile market - ultraportables and notebooks. However, this has not prevented Intel and its partners from introducing it as a follow-up to Raptor Lake-P and Raptor Lake-H in the SFF / UCFF desktop market. ASRock Industrial has consistently been the first to market with ultra-compact form-factor motherboards and mini-PCs, with product announcements coinciding with Intel's launch of its latest and greatest mobile processors. Meteor Lake has not been any different, with the...
Intel Atlas Canyon (NUC11ATKPE) and GEEKOM MiniAir 11 UCFF PCs Review: Desktop Jasper Lake Impresses
Intel's low-power Tremont microarchitecture has powered a range of products - from the short-lived Lakefield, to Elkhart Lake in the embedded space, and finally, Jasper Lake in the client...
23 by Ganesh T S on 7/14/2022Jasper Lake Fanless Showdown: ECS LIVA Z3 and ZOTAC ZBOX CI331 nano UCFF PCs Review
Intel's Jasper Lake series of products based on the Tremont microarchitecture was launched in early 2021. Since then, we have seen a steady stream of notebooks and motherboards /...
52 by Ganesh T S on 7/8/2022ASRock Industrial's NUC1200 BOX Series Brings Alder Lake to UCFF Systems
Intel recently updated their low-power processors lineup with the Alder Lake U and P Series 12th Gen Core mobile SKUs. With support for a range of TDPs up to...
22 by Ganesh T S on 3/3/2022ASUS PN50 mini-PC Review: A Zen 2 Business NUC
Ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) machines have been one of the major drivers in the resurgence of the PC market. The trend was kickstarted by Intel's NUCs in the early 2010s...
32 by Ganesh T S on 10/1/2021ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-1165G7 Mini-PC Review: An Ultra-Compact Tiger Lake Desktop
Intel introduced the Willow Cove micro-architecture with their Tiger Lake processors in the latter part of 2020. These were designed to span a wide range of performance levels and...
33 by Ganesh T S on 8/26/2021Intel's Tiger Lake NUC11: Panther Canyon for Asia Alone
The electronics industry supply chain is facing a number of issues due to the ongoing pandemic. Companies are unable to meet product demand, and are being forced to fine-tune...
27 by Ganesh T S on 2/4/2021ECS LIVA Z3 Plus Review: Compact Comet Lake NUC Clone Cuts Corners
ECS is a well-known OEM in computing circles, known for building motherboards, computers, and industrial / embedded systems for other vendors. Some of their motherboards and small form-factor PCs...
15 by Ganesh T S on 12/22/2020ASRock Brings Zen 2 NUC : 4X4 BOX-4800U Renoir Mini-PC Reviewed
AMD-based ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) systems are slowly gaining market acceptance, with the Zen architecture slowly catching up with Intel on both the performance as well as power consumption front...
53 by Ganesh T S on 11/25/2020Akasa Turing Fanless Case Review: Unrivalled Noiseless NUC
Silent computing systems are preferable for a multitude of use-cases ranging from industrial applications (where dust and fans make for a troublesome configuration) to noiseless HTPCs (particularly for audiophiles)...
28 by Ganesh T S on 10/26/2020ASRock Industrial's NUC 1100 BOX Series Brings Tiger Lake to UCFF Systems
Intel's introduction of the Tiger Lake U-series processors with support for a range of TDPs up to 28W has resulted in vendors launching a number of interesting systems with...
13 by Ganesh T S on 10/13/2020MinisForum Unveils EliteMini H31G: 65W CPU & 75W GPU in a Compact Mini-PC
MinisForum has been making some interesting moves in the last few months with their computing platforms, ranging from the DMAF5 based on the Ryzen 3000H-series SoCs to the Ice...
3 by Ganesh T S on 9/29/2020ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX-V1000M Ryzen Mini-PC Review: Finding Zen In The Small Things
The miniaturization trend triggered by the ultra-compact form factor NUCs from Intel has emerged as a key driver in the growth of the PC market. Processor power efficiency is...
37 by Ganesh T S on 9/28/2020ASRock Industrial's 4x4-BOX UCFF PC Series Goes Premium with Ryzen 4000U Renoir APUs
ASRock Industrial has been at the forefront of AMD-based UCFF PCs, being one of the first to bring out systems based on the Ryzen Embedded APUs in mid-2019. In...
36 by Ganesh T S on 9/8/2020Intel Puts Whiskey Lake on The Bonfire: Penny for the NUC
Intel has begun winding down sales of the majority of its Whiskey Lake-based 8th generation NUCs (NUC8 Series). This month the company issued a product change notification for...
13 by Anton Shilov on 3/10/2020GIGABYTE Unveils Comet Lake-Based BRIX UCFF PC: 6 Cores, USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, & RS232
GIGABYTE has quietly added its first Comet Lake-U-powered ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) BRIX PCs to its lineup. The new systems were designed for home, office, and commercial applications, they offer...
20 by Anton Shilov on 2/21/2020ECS to Unveil LIVA Z3 Plus & LIVA Z3E Plus UCFF PCs at CES: Intel’s 10th Gen Core Inside
ECS this week disclosed plans to introduce new LIVA ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) PCs based on Intel’s 10th Gen Core processors. Set to be fully unveiled at CES next month...
6 by Anton Shilov on 12/18/2019Ryzen UCFF-palooza: Multiple PC Makers Now Shipping AMD Ryzen Embedded Systems
While AMD's Ryzen Embedded APUs aren't new, the rate of adoption for them is. AMD unveiled this week that four more manufacturers are now offering ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) PCs...
24 by Anton Shilov on 12/4/2019Intel Unveils Specificiations of NUC Element Modular PCs
In preparation to kick off sales of its NUC Element modular computers, Intel has disclosed some additional details about the product family. As expected, Intel will offer NUC Element...
14 by Anton Shilov on 12/4/2019ASRock Reveals Mars UCFF PCs: 0.74-Liters With Intel Core Inside
ASRock has introduced its new Mars series of ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) barebones PCs. The Intel Core-based PCs come in a 0.74-liter chassis and can house up to 32 GB...
26 by Anton Shilov on 11/27/2019Intel Confirms Comet Lake-Based NUC 10 ‘Frost Canyon’ UCFF PCs
Intel has officially confirmed plans to release its NUC10 ‘Frost Canyon’ ultra-compact form-factor PCs with mobile Comet Lake processors. The main selling point of the systems will be CPUs...
21 by Anton Shilov on 11/21/2019