Damn, this is a sad day for the homelab.
The article says Intel is working with partners to “continue NUC innovation and growth”, so we will see what that manifests as.
Jesus Christ. Why does it feel like tech industry is just getting shittier and more expensive, while all the cool consumer options are being axed. Intel Nucs were a relatively cheap way to get a cute little desktop machine or a home server. I am sad that they’re going away. I guess there’s always Minisforum, but still…
Because infinite growth of profits on a finite planet.
Capitalism is unsustainable. We’re seeing what happens in late capitalism. The belts tighten, the workers get left in the dust, the products consumers actually want get the axe.
We don’t even have capitalism yet, what late stage are you talking about?
I guess that really depends on where you live. I can only speak on behalf of the US.
What are you defining capitalism as, and what word would you use to describe our current system?
You can read about capitalism in Wikipedia.
Most countries today move towards economical fascism, where governments exercise control over private property but do not nationalize it. Lobbying, donor interest protection, cronyism, rise of oligarchy - you can see it in many countries. And then inevitable radicalisation of the public and scapegoating everything else as the core issue. Capitalism, migrants, ecology - everything is a problem but the government.
While companies today are certainly overzealous in their drive for growth, it is a myth that infinite economic growth is impossible. It is not only possible but necessary: https://medium.com/@oliverwaters_76079/the-strange-necessity-of-infinite-economic-growth-ebc2e505cdf1
That article is utterly unconvincing. It just handwaves the finite nature of our material reality with a very weak appeal to “infinite” human creativity. And then the conclusion is that infinite growth is necessary because there’s no way to change the status quo of wealth hoarding. It’s just apologism for the very worst aspects of capitalism without a single iota of serious thought.
I don’t think there is any hand waving. Consuming a resource is not the only factor that goes into economic growth. Can you address that point specifically?
No I won’t because it’s irrelevant if it is the only factor or not. It’s the limiting factor. Please don’t engage in red herrings.
You won’t because you don’t understand what you’re talking about.
Only two kinds of people believe in infinite growth; economists and psychopaths.
Infinite growth is cancer’s credo.
Yeah this part bothers me. To these companies a solid profit stream is not viable. It has to be iPhone level growth year after year or they think it’s failing and axe it. It’s quite annoying. Eventually you will hit a plateau. That just means it’s a mature market, not failing. Grrrr…
You see the same shit on streaming services. “Oh this show has been out for two days and hasn’t reached Game of Thrones level of popularity already? Let’s remove it from existence forever.”
Chip shortage. Since COVID, chip companies have been having a really hard time getting properly restocked. This impacts all electronics industries. Cars, computers, even Apple had to redesign some of their products to accommodate the shortages, so has many other companies big and small. The Raspberry Pi prices have soared. So products that take a chip away from a more mainstream or lucrative market are being axed.
Intel NUCs were very good machines but honestly they were completely overpriced compared to Chuwi/Minisforum/etc.
My guess is they were just not enough sales, that’s all.
Probably because people aren’t spending their money on it.
Every time I’ve had a use for these either a business PC (or ex-business referb for home) has always been a better, cheaper answer.
I hope Valve release a home console with SteamOS like this.
They did, and it was a market failure, so they dumped all their inventory for cheap.
Minisforum is taking the torch from them. I just bought one from them which is essentially a NUC, it has a Core i7 and RTX 3070 mobile in it. It’s pretty much a laptop without a screen. They make tons of smaller ones if you forgo the integrated high-end GPU.
They were too pricy for me. I ended up with Bee-link machines (SER4/5/5Pro) and am happy with them.
Oh man i was thinking of getting one of these to replace my raspberry pi
Lenovo or HP mini PC would be a much better bang for your buck.
They’re also a lot bigger and don’t really fall under the same miniPC classification.
They’re not a lot bigger than a NUC. My HP mini PC’s footprint is like 8"x8"
And NUCs are usually 4x4. That’s literally half the footprint.
Edit: a quarter of the size. This is why I don’t do math before coffee.
Maybe ironically with the prices dropping on these people will actually buy them…
I think there’s a niche for a computer slightly more powerful than a raspberry pi, with no need for active cooling, capable of running as a basic always-on server.
The Intel NUCs were always a bit too expensive for that, and the Raspberry Pis are slightly underpowered (plus the SD-card as the primary storage is limiting). But, there are increasingly ways that people who aren’t massive computer geeks would want an always-on computer. Things like a home security system, a media downloader, a home automation machine, etc. The power consumption, noise and size of a desktop computer is just overkill for that. A Raspberry Pi could be, but the default versions are not designed as servers. They’re more robotics sandboxes.
There’s a few boards that bridge the gap between pi and a pc for media servers and small NAS uses. Look at Asus Tinker board, Odroid, Udoo Bolt, Orange Pi, Rockpro64, BeagleBone
I’ve only recently been thinking of setting up a media server or NAS. Currently have a RaspberryPi running a 3D print server, but like you say RaspberryPi’s are a bit weak hardware wise and limited by the SD card. But I never wanted to spend the money on a NUC. I’ll have to check out these other options you mentioned, thanks for listing them.
the Raspberry Pis are slightly underpowered (plus the SD-card as the primary storage is limiting).
OrangePi has been my go-to since these got expensive. More features, including a 8gb emmc module built in, and just as cheap.
The article makes it sound they cost over $1,000 (USD?) and were impossible to find but here in Australia I never had any issues finding and unless you were going for the extreme versions, there closer to $5-600AUD which made them a great fit. All we can hope is that there’s a few other brands who are willing to fill the space with equal quality products.
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equal quality products
Except they don’t fill this niche. Sure, Beelinks and minisforum are neat and cheap, but they tend to have QC problems and don’t stack up well against Intel NUCs.
Sad really, but the issue, as someone as mentioned already is they were too expensive.
