Hardware Intel NUC D54250WYK / D54250WYB Review

The new Haswell version of Intel NUC is better than ever.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2013/12/12/intel-nuc-d54250wyk-d54250wyb-review/1

 

It's not April 1st yet so why is this thing featured?

£295 is comical of course and that's the reason I'm not falling for this prank.

 

295 for the i7 variety they mentioned - would be more on par

 

Can I ask why it is that you use completely different rating categories and scores between the magazine and the website? Which then led me to check another article for comparison sake and I found that the R9 290X has the same rating categories and score break downs but the same card scored differently between the magazine and the website. So why the inconsistency?

 

I'm really disapointed by the Intel HD5000.

 

Who gives a NUC?

Really don't see the appeal of these sub-Mini-ITX form factors. Why not just buy an AIO?

 

I must say I'm loving my NUC, using it as a media PC down in the living room. Can't stand those normal "media boxes" that fit even an ITX mobo, they're simply hideous. Having such a tiny form factor allows for some really interesting case designs, so I can have it on show, without it taking up the whole room like a normal tower of sorts.

I'll admit that they are definitely on the pricey side of things though. The thing is, you can't really grasp how small the NUCs are until you actually hold one, they're minuscule. I'm building an ITX rig atm and it dwarfs the NUC, and that's just through the motherboard size.

 

I've seen some really nice ITX cases.

Of course nice is subjective to some extent.

 

Streacom have got a nice fanless case for this. Sometime in the new year I'm getting this, or the i3 version, a fanless case and putting XBMC on it. Small, silent, lower-powered and good enough for very smooth service as an HTPC.

I'd be very interested to see what happens when the Intel 5000 graphics are pared with a CPU clocked at over 3GHz, I reckon it'll be an AMD-breaker.

 

The only problem with NUCs as HTPC is that there is nowhere to plug a tuner card...

 

That kind of thinking is the start of a whole heap of issues and is a little conservative to ever say 'The only...' as the solution to your particular issue is a USB tuner card. I am still totally confused by the lack of a suitable discussions resolution to the issue on sound. So many people talk about on board sound being awful and yet you can not use a dedicated sound device (unless you go USB) for anything smaller than mATX and even with mATX you are then limited to only the sound card and can add nothing else. I really wish this issue regarding sound can be discussed completely and thoroughly as there seems to be no clear line of thinking.

 

Who wants a USB dongle hanging off the back of a compact little case? Good point about the sound --I wonder if another standalone device would be a solution. There could be stackable modules, starting with the NUC PC and adding tuner, sound and other modules.

 

Speaking purely personally part of the appeal of HTPCs is the idea of centralising the back-end services to allow deploying multiple clients around the house (Lounge, office, bedroom etc).

So my ideal would be to have a simple XBMC terminal under each screen I needed to deliver services to and have the central database and storage elsewhere. To that I would add a MythTV backend or two to hand TV services and serve them to the client.

But that's just what I'd do

And from that point of view these boxes are pretty much ideal - a little on the pricey side and I'd probably want to look at buying the MB rather than the kit and getting one of the passive-cool cases to eliminate noise entirely.

One quick question - I know the upcoming version of XBMC (Gotham) supports full-size SBS 3D video (ie 3840 x 1080) - anyone know if these boxes can handle playback of these files?

(Bearing in mind that SBS is a lot harder on the hardware than BR3D playback)

 

I've been working on a concept 2 years ago, but never built it (as always) :









It was based on thin mini ITX motherboard, but with the NUC it could be reduced a lot .... maybe not the amp side though

 

Ooh, yeah. Now that's what I'm talking about!

 

http://dvblogic.com/en/

That's my solution to this particular conundrum. It's great.

 

The new NUC, allthough it misses a PCIe x1/x2 for a tuner, is still the best solution for a HTPC imho, especially now as they've added a SATA-port.

Sound is done via USB-DAC and as most new TVs have triple-tuners anyways, there's no reason for a TV-tuner anymore, if you don't plan on recording TV-shows, which I don't.

The new NUC isn't cheap, especially compared to a mITX D2550/E350 board, but the size makes it very attractive, aswell as the more powerful CPU and the integrated IR-sensor in comparison to the two mentioned.

Oh, and Guille... look at this interesting piece of hardware and it's dimensions -> http://www.thomann.de/fi/teac_a_h01_b.htm
Build a matching box for a mITX-board and voilá

 

Oh ye of little faith and imagination. The board has has a USB2 header, surely someone of the modding inclination could incorporate the tuner dongle into a custom case... likewise a USB DAC could be hooked up to the other header port for sound...

 

Very interesting, but I'm more into things like this (too bad that it is smaller than the Streacom F1C) :

http://www.streacom.com/products/tl1-tube-amplifier/





But with it's 2x 2.5W it's only for ultra efficient speakers (97db and above I'd say)

 

I am ashamed.