Intel Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX Review: NUC 9 Extreme Realizes the SFF Dream
anandtech.comSFF Dream is 'laptopification' of desktop computing. Overpriced screenless closed system laptops. No more incremental upgrades, instead inadequate cooling, power throttling, dongles and converters galore, vendor/ecosystem lockin. $2800 for last generation CPU, 16GB of RAM, and an RTX 2070.
Reminds me of https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
This NUC has upgradable RAM, Disk, GPU, and CPU backplane.
It's a 8core 2.6GHz 45W CPU, not last generation, with lots of ports.
If you don't want a small cool powerful machine, it's not for you
Pricing on this is ridiculous. Build your own SFF system using MiniITX and save the money.
What if I don't want to build my own?
Actually, you know, I'm going to pull back on my original post a bit. I didn't realize they were using a $500+ Optane drive in here and not in some of the other systems they compared to... that does inflate the price quite a bit.
Still, it seems even the barebones being $1500 is a lot. Not sure where the majority of the cost is coming from otherwise without the Optane and GPU. Still seems like a decent premium, but not as exorbitant as I originally thought. Especially since there are some trade-offs (like the x8 PCI-e, etc).
If you don't feel like building one and money is not a concern- then this machine is likely perfect for you. No problem with that at all. In fact, if this machine was more affordable barebones, I'd be interested myself.