Which should be better, crimson or bean canyon? I'd say bean, but then I don't get why they are launching this...maybe they have an overstock of that pretty bad 10nm cpus...
Supposedly, Intel couldn't give away those chips to laptop makers (lower clocks, no GPU and higher power consumption vs 14nm parts). This sounds like a decent way to make lemonade from those chips.
intel always run a small line of chips through the new process. its just now that everybody is screaming about 10nm that they were forced to tell which chip is the pipe cleaner for the new node. this isnt new. you keep making the chips and sell them at cost so that at least you are not going in the hole for the silicon
I was shocked to see the same thing. You'd think in 2018 a design like this would be USB-C POWERED.
The other disappointment was the CPU. Why can't they put an i5-8350 in there? Double the cores, double the threads, same power envelope. Is this a premium device or what?
My think pad for work also has this functionality - oddly it been power on as desktop machine for the last 4 or so years - rarely use that functionally
I can see a good use as a developer for this product. The i3-8121U does support AVX 512 and this could likely be a cheaper alternate to start development on the product. Also it support Optane Memory - which to effective used - requires development support.
I wonder just how many wafers of these broken 10nm CPUs they don't want to throw away just because the iGPU doesn't work and the CPU doesn't live up to 10nm expectation?
I didn't know Intel to be 'green' that way and I'm not even sure if its not greener to turn them back into sand...
Caveat emptor, these are crippled chips and too power hungry to be useful as mobiles (noticed the 90 Watts power brick?).
I'm pretty sure a Kaby or Skylake with the Iris 550 and eDRAM will perform at a similar level of performance with less energy consumption. Why? Because I have one and tested it extensively.
I have an Intel Core i5-6267U based notebook and an A10-7850K Kaveri APU with 512 GCN graphic cores, not exactly the same generation, but I expect at similar levels for performance as the Radeon 540 here.
The Intel has DDR3-1600, because the BIOS won't accept higher speeds, the AMD has DDR3-2400, because I wanted to give it the best possible bandwidth to ensure it could actually use all 512 GPU cores for maximum benefit (as recommended on this site).
The Skylake notebook and the AMD Kaveri are very evenly matched on all graphics tests, they are not too far away on pure CPU loads, even if the Intel gets a bit ahead on single and multi workloads.
The difference: Intel draws 30 Watts at the wall socket tops, AMD can go up to 150 Watts, generally above 100Watts once you mix Prime95 and Furmark, because it has to drop back from its 4GHz peak clock. And the Intel only needs 3GHz and the rather ordinary RAM to be faster on CPU, while the 64MB eDRAM level the field against DDR3-2400 and 512 AMD GPU cores.
I got the Kaveri, because I wanted to explore HSA and VMs with virtualized passthrough GPUs: It was supposed to be the first bit of hardware able to do both.
But the software support for both never happened...
The Radeon 540 here will significantly outperform that Kaveri. Kaveri is crippled by bandwidth starvation and sharing a TDP never really helped it, either; added to that it was a couple of manufacturing nodes behind by the time it hit the market. Your comparison isn't at all valid.
TL;DR: Iris 550 doesn't have squat on a 512 core Polaris dGPU. It's about half as fast in its best case performance. Even if we assume the GPU here is hobbled by thermal throttling, it's still going to be noticeably quicker than Intel's best.
I love the NUC platform and have one connected to my TV but... As with the last two gens of i7, the most important thing to consider is the fan noise. The i3 and mostly i5 are really quiet but as soon as you step up it gets annoying.
Intel has told Analists and investors that 10nm parts would be shipping in q3/q4 2018 , and lo! it was thus ... they may be fairly rubbish but they're out ..
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
25 Comments
Back to Article
rmullns08 - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
The documents don't specify the CPU, but their main page on the NUCs confirms your belief about the processor.Tyler_Durden_83 - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Which should be better, crimson or bean canyon? I'd say bean, but then I don't get why they are launching this...maybe they have an overstock of that pretty bad 10nm cpus...ImSpartacus - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
They probably have an obligation to ship 10nm parts in 2018.I would agree that Bean Canyon is probably better.
quadrivial - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Supposedly, Intel couldn't give away those chips to laptop makers (lower clocks, no GPU and higher power consumption vs 14nm parts). This sounds like a decent way to make lemonade from those chips.bobhumplick - Saturday, December 8, 2018 - link
intel always run a small line of chips through the new process. its just now that everybody is screaming about 10nm that they were forced to tell which chip is the pipe cleaner for the new node. this isnt new. you keep making the chips and sell them at cost so that at least you are not going in the hole for the silicontimecop1818 - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Huh .. No USB-C or thunderbolt but two useless HDMI outputs? this thing looks DOASamus - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
I was shocked to see the same thing. You'd think in 2018 a design like this would be USB-C POWERED.The other disappointment was the CPU. Why can't they put an i5-8350 in there? Double the cores, double the threads, same power envelope. Is this a premium device or what?
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
There might be an i5 version.Plus, I'd imagine, that many businesses and home tv users, would prefer hdmi. USB C is still not mainstream.
Lolimaster - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
As other said, there must be obligation to put 10nm CL products no matter how broken they're.Their 10nm current lineup is a 2c/4t with a broken disabled igpu and even with that it consumes more than their Coffeelake counterparts.
Samus - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
Dumping old silicon maybe...?mode_13h - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
> It also lacks iGPU, which is why the NUCi3CY-series PCs need a dGPU.Heh, buried in the 3rd paragraph.
Wingartz - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Noob question, the yellow USB port is....??SeanFL - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
If it's similar to my NUC, a constantly powered USB for charging a phone for example when the NUC is off.HStewart - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
My think pad for work also has this functionality - oddly it been power on as desktop machine for the last 4 or so years - rarely use that functionallywr3zzz - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Yellow denotes always-on power. It's a USB 3.0 port that can charge devices even if the the PC is off.sprockkets - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Provides more charging current.HStewart - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
I can see a good use as a developer for this product. The i3-8121U does support AVX 512 and this could likely be a cheaper alternate to start development on the product. Also it support Optane Memory - which to effective used - requires development support.abufrejoval - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
I wonder just how many wafers of these broken 10nm CPUs they don't want to throw away just because the iGPU doesn't work and the CPU doesn't live up to 10nm expectation?I didn't know Intel to be 'green' that way and I'm not even sure if its not greener to turn them back into sand...
Caveat emptor, these are crippled chips and too power hungry to be useful as mobiles (noticed the 90 Watts power brick?).
I'm pretty sure a Kaby or Skylake with the Iris 550 and eDRAM will perform at a similar level of performance with less energy consumption. Why? Because I have one and tested it extensively.
I have an Intel Core i5-6267U based notebook and an A10-7850K Kaveri APU with 512 GCN graphic cores, not exactly the same generation, but I expect at similar levels for performance as the Radeon 540 here.
The Intel has DDR3-1600, because the BIOS won't accept higher speeds, the AMD has DDR3-2400, because I wanted to give it the best possible bandwidth to ensure it could actually use all 512 GPU cores for maximum benefit (as recommended on this site).
The Skylake notebook and the AMD Kaveri are very evenly matched on all graphics tests, they are not too far away on pure CPU loads, even if the Intel gets a bit ahead on single and multi workloads.
These are only the Geekbench values, I did vastly more extensive testing.
AMD: http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/8991367
Intel: http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/8803309
OpenCL AMD: http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/compute/1304546
OpenCL Intel: http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/compute/2545546
The difference: Intel draws 30 Watts at the wall socket tops, AMD can go up to 150 Watts, generally above 100Watts once you mix Prime95 and Furmark, because it has to drop back from its 4GHz peak clock. And the Intel only needs 3GHz and the rather ordinary RAM to be faster on CPU, while the 64MB eDRAM level the field against DDR3-2400 and 512 AMD GPU cores.
I got the Kaveri, because I wanted to explore HSA and VMs with virtualized passthrough GPUs: It was supposed to be the first bit of hardware able to do both.
But the software support for both never happened...
Spunjji - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
The Radeon 540 here will significantly outperform that Kaveri. Kaveri is crippled by bandwidth starvation and sharing a TDP never really helped it, either; added to that it was a couple of manufacturing nodes behind by the time it hit the market. Your comparison isn't at all valid.TL;DR: Iris 550 doesn't have squat on a 512 core Polaris dGPU. It's about half as fast in its best case performance. Even if we assume the GPU here is hobbled by thermal throttling, it's still going to be noticeably quicker than Intel's best.
lmcd - Saturday, August 11, 2018 - link
Iris 550? Iris 580 doesn't have anything on a dGPU with real VRAM. A 550 wouldn't even be close.Now, if he's benching on Linux then maybe (wasn't HSA basically useless on Windows?).
quadrivial - Friday, August 10, 2018 - link
These horrible chips are Intel's proof to investors that they are making 10nm stuff.oRAirwolf - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
I really wish Intel would offer these with dual NICsdamianrobertjones - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
I love the NUC platform and have one connected to my TV but... As with the last two gens of i7, the most important thing to consider is the fan noise. The i3 and mostly i5 are really quiet but as soon as you step up it gets annoying.dromoxen - Friday, August 10, 2018 - link
Intel has told Analists and investors that 10nm parts would be shipping in q3/q4 2018 , and lo! it was thus ... they may be fairly rubbish but they're out ..itsratso - Wednesday, September 5, 2018 - link
i still say, make this the perfect htpc and have me be able to power it up/off with my harmony remote.