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

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

7 points by pavelmark 6 years ago | 5 comments

rasz 6 years ago |

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

gowld 6 years ago | |

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

kup0 6 years ago |

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

gowld 6 years ago | |

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

kup0 6 years ago | | |

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.