Well, sometimes fatigue “degrades” the quality of our puns… The most experienced will have understood in this title a reference to the fable The Frog that wants to be as big as the ox to talk about this NUC 13 Extreme. For some time now, Intel’s NUCs, which were originally a range of mini PCs, have had a strong tendency to become overweight.
Intel’s NUC Extreme gets closer to the classic PC
the latest NUC Extreme, with an Alder Lake processor, can accommodate a graphics card in a full-length chassis. With a volume of 8L, this size is still acceptable for a machine that can accept relatively solid dedicated graphics cards (even if you cannot go beyond 2 slots). But on the next generation, Intel has decided to go from 8L to 13.9L with the NUC 13 Extreme, code name Raptor Canyon. We might as well say that with this version, we simply have the feeling that Intel arrives directly on the market of the “classic” PC with a chassis which is certainly discreet but which is very close to the classic market standards (Mini-ITX or Micro-ATX). It has to be said that this version will be able to receive some heavyweight processors, primarily Raptor Lake processors. Obviously, the advantage of this gain in volume is first of all to be able to dissipate better and to accept a power supply capable of accepting a higher consumption. But obviously, the main interest is to be able to mount a card with a thickness of up to 3 slots.
Obviously, in the range RTX 30 see in the house (ARC A750 or A770) we should be able to find what to equip. Concerning the new Nvidia generation, we will have to wait a bit more to see a version able to fit in such a chassis.