A few of my friends and I are working on the design of a robust, portable computing form factor. After previously consdering various of the Gigabyte Brix Pro series, we settled on the Skull Canyon as the core of the ensemble, currently composed of:<p>1) Intel NUC Kit NUC6i7KYK<p>2) 32 (2 x 16) GiB DDR4 2133MHz RAM (G.SKILL Ripjaws)
3) 512 GB M.2 NVMe SSD (Samsung 950 Pro)<p>4) 9.7" 2048x1536 DisplayPort Monitor (Adafruit Qualia kit)<p>5) 104 key mechanical keyboard w/Cherry MX Blue switches (DAS Professional)<p>Everything worked the first time it was plugged together, and now the system can run StarCraft II: LoTV with medium settings under Wine on Arch GNU/Linux. The next steps are to transform the output from a LiFePo4 motorcycle battery (via a DC-DC converter) to the correct voltage, furnish a case and smaller keyboard, and start testing/optimizing the setup in the field.<p>Edit: The 45W TDP of the NUC6i7KYK was its main advantage when compared to discretely sourcing comparable or superior components for a mini-ITX build. Even after doubling the power draw to account for a screen, speakers, and additional cooling, two kilograms of lithium should provide two hours of roaming battery life (and weight minimization is low on our priority list).
For anyone else baffled by another TLA: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Unit_of_Computing" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Unit_of_Computing</a>
Pretty decent GPU performance, 80% performance of the non-overclocked 4790K, which is my go to desktop processor these days. And it has 40% of the performance of the top end processors available.<p>The GPU is rated 1,921 on the PassMark website, which is about 6x slower than the top GPUs. It is 3x slower than what were mid-range GPUs 4 years ago. It is okay-ish, but it is pretty slow compared to what is available.<p>Thus it is a good desktop machine for non-3D workflows. Like using Word or Web Browsing at 4K. I can not imagine anyone having problems with that. It will likely be quite snappy.<p>I think anyone interested in 3D games will be dissatisfied with the GPU performance, and that will be very pronounced at high screen (4K) resolutions.<p>I could see picking these up for our non-developer non-content creator employees. But not for our developers or 3D artists.
Really nice, except the design. I mean it looks like the front ports where aligned via CSS vertical-align. And the skull probably looks cool if you're 14.
We had a previous discussion about this, and for its price ($675 with no RAM or SSD?) you can build a really nice mini-ITX system that uses a full size PCI-Express 3.0 video card. The mini-itx system will run circles around this with its laptop CPU. With the right mini-itx case it will still fit nicely into a home theatre setup or in relatively small spaces.
Strangely, none of the pictures gives you a point of reference to it's actual size (which is 8.3" x 4.5" x 1.1").<p>Usually they show it being held up or next to a common reference, like a quarter, or coffee cup, or the front page of today's newspaper.
4k (3840 × 2160 @ 60Hz) is already possible since the NUC Rock Canyon models[0] and Maple Canyon models[1], all based on 5th gen core processors code named Broadwell, available since Q1/2015.<p>The latest are the Swift Canyon models[2] based on the 6th gen core processors code named Skylake, available since Q4/2015, joined now by Skull Canyon[3].<p>[0] <a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/codename/77659" rel="nofollow">http://ark.intel.com/products/codename/77659</a><p>[1] <a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/codename/75423" rel="nofollow">http://ark.intel.com/products/codename/75423</a><p>[2] <a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/codename/85413" rel="nofollow">http://ark.intel.com/products/codename/85413</a><p>[3] <a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/codename/74691" rel="nofollow">http://ark.intel.com/products/codename/74691</a>
Mentioned by Jeff Atwood <a href="https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-golden-age-of-x86-gaming/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-golden-age-of-x86-gaming/</a>
A review, in case in interests anyone:<p><a href="http://nucblog.net/2016/05/skull-canyon-nuc-review/" rel="nofollow">http://nucblog.net/2016/05/skull-canyon-nuc-review/</a>
I like that they're putting a Thunderbolt 3 port on it, perhaps this generation of Thunderbolt can escape the high end and be more generally useful?
So it has three video outputs, but can it drive all three?<p>The big advantage of a stationary computer over a laptop these days is that it can drive displays, in the plural, so that your use-case is the only factor deciding how many screens to have.
I use a bunch of NUCs for prototyping cluster development for Cassandra, Celery, and Storm. I believe the economics are much better than doing the same with cloud, because I don't feel that nagging "tick tock" of metered usage. I bought 6 gigabyte BRIX PROs, stuffed them each with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD, each has 4790 CPUs, and I feel very good about prototyping in my own time on this little cluster, for deployment later. Perfect "training" system.
AMD has for several years, the almost free compared to intel prices, 4cored 5350 apu. it serves 4k out of display port ot hdmi. and is very low watt (my htpc runs passively cooled. though not pumping 4k, wich is useless still)<p>sadly it's mostly ignored by everyone because there's only two relevant motherboards for it.
I'm tempted to replace my NUC5i7RYH with this one. Although Linux support has been spotty and the xfsettingsd bug was <i>quite</i> painful.<p>That said, something like this with a terabyte of cross-point (aka "Optane") flash in it will no doubt eventually be my working desktop.
Pretty decent GPU performance, 80% performance of the non-overclocked 4790K, which is my go to desktop processor these days<p>I would get one of these the day it come out.
> wicked ... totally cool<p>...With words like this and the skull design, at least their marketing department are "down with the kids" - rad!