Asus Formally Completes Acquisition of Intel's NUC Business | Hacker News Reader

Asus Formally Completes Acquisition of Intel's NUC Business

anandtech.com

62 pointsmikece38 comments

I've always been a fan of NUC's. I've never had one as a primary computer, but my only windows pc is a NUC 11 enthusiast. I got it a few years ago for around 1000 bucks plus 32 gigs of ram and 1tb nvme. At the time it was the cheapest way to get a complete box with a 2060 in it and I couldn't be happier with it. I would have preferred if Intel had kept developing the NUC line instead but all things considered, Asus would have been my second choice. I hope they get it right and the NUC line stays as awesome as it is.

Recent and related:

ASUS to manufacture and sell Intel’s NUC products - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36781248 - July 2023 (334 comments)

Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel NUC - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36680674 - July 2023 (361 comments)

I'm intrigued by this. Asus has been trying to do new ideas and I would like to see what happens with Asus not feeling the need to keep OEMs happy.

I recently built an mATX PC and while looking at smaller cases that worked in the Living Room space I had, I ran across the Asus AP201 case and then bought one. The attention to detail is wild, definitely better thought over than anything else in it's low price range. I would really like to see Asus take further steps into the enthusiast market beyond just components. They have good ideas, I want to see them shipped.

Hard to tell what the value is here. The only thing differentiating NUCs vs any of the other ultra-sff offerings from everyone else was the fact that it was a testing ground for some of Intel's next generation or experimental chip technology.

Without Intel having a stake in it it seems like all they bought was a name.

They had some pretty wild ideas in the last two generations around motherboard design and compute elements.

Yeah. Aren't Intel NUCs the only Ultra-SFF offerings that separate the system between compute elements and board elements? It makes it simpler to have a board element specifically designed for a device while allowing upgradability of the compute element. For example, I imagine SimulaVR adopted NUCs in order to facilitate users being able to upgrade their system's CPU and RAM specs without having to replace the whole HMD or their device-specific board.

The front (well, top) panels that could be 3d printed and could have connections were pretty cool too. Too bad they didn't see much use.

But lately the nuc lineup was kinda meh anyway. A lot of models didn't come out in Europe but only Asia. They replaced the aluminium enclosure with plastic. Used realtek chips for network. Kept doing weird things with the ports (mini-HDMI, DisplayPort only over USB-C).

I loved these little things though. I hate laptops due to ergonomics and everywhere I travel (which is super rare anyway) there's screens and keyboards anyway. So I just travel with my nuc. Cheaper, much less fragile, easy to upgrade and lighter and smaller than a laptop. Also no Lithium battery which gives some peace of mind because most of my NUCs run 24/7.

I have 4 of them as really power efficient servers. Unfortunately the realtek thing hurts a bit with the latest ESXi. But you can still pass it through to a VM and use a USB one for management.

And I have one 10th gen as workstation running FreeBSD.

Asus already made pretty nice NUC equivalents by the way, I have one of them with a Ryzen.

Recent consumer 2.5G+ LAN chips by Intel suck so it's make sense to adopt Realtek despite it's Intel product

Ah but they used the 1 gigabit realtek in the models I was thinking of. Perhaps now they use more modern ones though.

It's pretty exciting to me. I'd like to see more mini PCs. The takeover reminds me a bit of Lenovo buying the Thinkpad division from IBM.

Isn't the Lenovo-ification of Thinkpads mostly seen as a fall from grace, though? I haven't had one, but my impression is that they're viewed as being not too different from the rest of the market these days.

I will say I have generally been happy with the Asus products I have bought, I have one of their laptops, and a motherboard in a tower, along with a wifi mesh setup, all of which have worked fine for me.

Well, they have TrackPoints. I did learn to live without a seven row keyboard the last two years -- previously I even bought the collector edition ThinkPad 25 to put that day off as far as I could -- but living without a TrackPoint? I am not keen on pawing at the wrist rest in a futile attempt to precisely move my mouse pointer. Mind you, I can barely use a mobile phone either, I hate the touchscreen keyboard with a fiery passion. I am efficient with my ThinkPads and https://xkcd.com/1806/ applies very heavily.

Also, there are some claims by ThinkPad fans about it being sturdier and easier to repair still. I do not know how much truth is in this. Lenovo still does publish Hardware Maintenance Manuals, do HP/Dell?

Business Models from Dell and HP have "trackpoints" too though, just not under the same name.

1. I believe despite the negative inertia patent have expired they have not implemented it which makes it really weird to use it.

2. I think Dell stopped doing that. Example: https://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/del... that's a Dell Precision. I think HP still has it but without the middle button it is really hard to use.

The latest T series are still the ThinkPads we love. Bought one for wife’s brother. That thing is well built and well performing.

They are good machines, but they are losing core spirit: built with plastic, keyboards more and more different compared to old-school, cut on upgradability every year, in latest AMD T you can't even upgrade RAM, in old Ts you could put tons of RAM and giant battery.

Yeah they kept the quality for a while but they're really sacrificing too much now.

They still have better keyboards. But they are shaving a little bit of key travel off every generation sadly :(

Its interesting but I am also confused, so ASUS used to have Mac Mini sized computers. What I dont seen to understand is what benefit ASUS gains from this? Unless theres some patents shifting from Intel to ASUS or other key technology that would allow ASUS to compete in the really small PC space differently im not sure what this all means.

The last paragraph seems to imply that they are getting not just all the designs but some sort of exclusive from Intel, so maybe in an effort to stay competitive Intel is letting ASUS build Mac Mini and co competitors and providing the processors for their efforts.

> It should be noted that Asus's Intel NUC license is not exclusive, so Intel may eventually enable other PC makers to build its NUCs and, therefore, compete against Apple.

The branding is probably worth something.

Presumably Intel has some large Enterprise contracts to provide NUC units on an extended timeline and this what Asus acquired to fulfill that need.

Intel was just going to shut the NUC division down completely. I imagine Asus is mostly buying the brand at a bargain price. Maybe any custom tooling as well?

Intel NUCs were always desirable, but too expensive for the specs even compared to a laptop.

And I don't really understand why... Maybe they were not trying to step on OEMs' toes? Or perhaps try to create a "premium" Apple-like brand?

This is an interesting element. Presumably, the pricing problem is about to disappear.

Hopefully they'll get cheaper. I'd love to see some AMD NUCs since their cpus seem to have better integrated graphics and run cooler.

https://www.asus.com/us/displays-desktops/mini-pcs/pn-series...

As a 4900HS owner, I wouldn't call the IGP "good" even in 2020. It feels slow, even in older games.

I think the 6000 series (and the Steam Deck, just barely) is where I draw the line. That's when the IGP got big enough, and the RAM fast enough, to be interesting.

True but I use it as a home lab so I don't care about the IGP at all.

And I assume there's updated models. I just got this one on a closeout sale.

That's pretty good!

Huh? How so? The i5 10th gen nuc (the last gen "performance" model to be offered in Europe officially) was €350. Even if you add storage and memory you got one sorry bit of laptop for that money.

Eh, maybe Europe is different. They were always more expensive in the US, especially since good laptops go on sale so much.

True, you do get really amazing deals. I often see them on arstechnica and other sites. We get pretty much nothing in that sense.

But I'd prefer a NUC over a laptop anyway.

NUC form factor is a lot more reliable compared to a cheap laptop and usually has better thermals and faster CPU

I bought my first NUC only few months ago, and could not be happier (maybe except that Intel has sold off....). I use it as my primary machine for programming and data analysis. I read reviews that said it's noisy little machine yet I heard its fans once or twice, in my very quiet office.

Great. Now please start making non-Intel NUCs.

RISC-V would be cool. AMD too.

Asus already does for years :) https://www.asus.com/us/displays-desktops/mini-pcs/pn-series...

Yes and they are wonderful. I hope Asus doesn't drop the PN line because of this.

>Microsoft Cortana support with dual-array front microphones

Hopefully easy to physically disable?

I do not need them and do not like to be around any unneeded microphones.

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