Tuesday, June 8th 2021

Intel NUC 11 Extreme "Beast Canyon" to Feature KB CPUs - Desktop Power, Mobile Socket

by
Raevenlord
 Discuss (28 Comments)
Intel's NUC 11 Extreme, codenamed Beast Canyon, is a revisit - and in some terms, reimagining - of the Extreme performance NUC range by Intel. The new Beast Canyon NUCs will now support full-length discrete graphics cards as well Intel's compute element in a single, 8L compact case. The compute element, which we have already pictured before, has now been photographed up close, manifesting one of Intel's latest additions to its ARK database - the NUC features a Core i9-11900KB CPU.

Intel has registered four B-line CPUs on its Ark: the i9-11900KB (unlocked, mobile socket, NUC-bound); i7-11700B; i5-11500B; and i3-11100B. All of these CPUs are meant for the NUC form-factor, are part of Intel's Next Unit of Computing design, and will ship in an add-in card form factor which already includes the socketed, mobile CPU (likely in BGA packaging), the RAM sticks, storage subsystem, and I/O complex. It remains to be seen whether this new form-factor convinces those interested in such a system - the added capability to add full-length PCIe graphics cards may add some flexibility, but it does come at the expense of physical footprint for the new generation NUC.
Source: Videocardz

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28 Comments on Intel NUC 11 Extreme "Beast Canyon" to Feature KB CPUs - Desktop Power, Mobile Socket

#2
Operandi
These things are dumb. Putting the compute on card forces the use of small blower style fan and sandwiching it next to hot running GPU, a recipe for garbage cooling and high noise if you are going to use a CPU with any real power draw. The CPU should be on the main PCB of the unit (preferably socketable) so it can make use of tower heatsink and share roles with either intake or exhaust fan in the front or back of the unit respectively.
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#3
Vayra86
Desktop heat in a tiny box what could possibly go wrong?

I hear Intel is providing a set of Delta fans and a magnetic strip to keep the NUC from melting or flying off under load.
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#4
Nordic
I want to see this water cooled.
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#5
darakian
OperandiThese things are dumb. Putting the compute on card forces the use of small blower style fan and sandwiching it next to hot running GPU, a recipe for garbage cooling and high noise if you are going to use a CPU with any real power draw. The CPU should be on the main PCB of the unit (preferably socketable) so it can make use of tower heatsink and share roles with either intake or exhaust fan in the front or back of the unit respectively.
I keep wondering why they don't flip the side for the cpu card so that both the cpu and the gpu can pull in air from the sides. They're proprietary cards already anyway.
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#6
TumbleGeorge
OperandiThese things are dumb. Putting the compute on card forces the use of small blower style fan and sandwiching it next to hot running GPU, a recipe for garbage cooling and high noise if you are going to use a CPU with any real power draw. The CPU should be on the main PCB of the unit (preferably socketable) so it can make use of tower heatsink and share roles with either intake or exhaust fan in the front or back of the unit respectively.
I see order to you from Intel be sure to buy this little one and mandatory install in it the video card with the highest energy consumption and the highest heat dissipation, with air cooling.
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#7
WhitetailAni
Not really sure this counts as a NUC anymore...
It looks more like an eGPU or a Mini-ITX case with a dGPU than a NUC.
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#8
Operandi
darakianI keep wondering why they don't flip the side for the cpu card so that both the cpu and the gpu can pull in air from the sides. They're proprietary cards already anyway.
Its a clean slate design, they could have done it any number of different ways that would be orders of magnitude better but I don't think they could have come up with one much worse than this. Classic Intel?
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#9
Vader
darakianI keep wondering why they don't flip the side for the cpu card so that both the cpu and the gpu can pull in air from the sides. They're proprietary cards already anyway.
Agree, it should work well though, these are laptops cpus after all, but imagine the potential with a better cooling design.
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#10
Operandi
VaderAgree, it should work well though, these are laptops cpus after all, but imagine the potential with a better cooling design.
If they flipped it like you are suggesting that whole side could be leveraged for CPU heatsink surface area. Stick two 120/140mm fans that would act as the heatsink fans and exhaust fans alike. That would be a sick design and 100x better than this garbage.
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#12
theGryphon
OperandiIf they flipped it like you are suggesting that whole side could be leveraged for CPU heatsink surface area. Stick two 120/140mm fans that would act as the heatsink fans and exhaust fans alike. That would be a sick design and 100x better than this garbage.
OR, they could just use a sandwich layout with a standard mITX motherboard, instead of inventing the wheel all over again. :kookoo: :banghead:
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#13
Operandi
theGryphonOR, they could just use a sandwich layout with a standard mITX motherboard, instead of inventing the wheel all over again. :kookoo: :banghead:
Well, all the ATX form factors are stupid old and are due to taken back out behind the barn. iTX works alright if you really plan it out but you have to deal with expensive riser cables in compact layouts to make use of the space properly, and there is the 24 pin taking up sizeable % of the board that is full of pins that don't do anything. ATX is just as bad for the opposite reasons, its full of dead unusable space. the CPU heatsink gets in the way of RAM because nobody ever thought there would be heatsink that big when ATX came out. The boards are full of expansions slots that don't get used, and the one that is used is holding GPUs 1KG plus that are literally failing due to their own weight cause again nobody ever thought there would be graphics cards so massive.

So yeah, a clean slate design is a good idea but this is not well thought out at all.
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#14
yotano211
Hardware GeekThe need to call this form factor NUC+.
I see your NUC+ and raise you another ++.
NUC+++
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#15
Tardian
NUC: Not Under any Circumstances?

Does this design seem DoA?

Skull motif rates a Hell No from she who MUST be obeyed.

Aren't NUC form factors supposed to be small?

This might work for outdoor research work during winters in Antarctica?
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#16
Fourstaff
At 8L it is more or less the same size as DAN A4?
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#17
Camm
Maybe not practical, but I quite like the idea personally. RAM being replaced with the compute unit though is a bit shit, just feels like a cost that should be lessened.
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#19
Frank_100
OperandiIts a clean slate design, they could have done it any number of different ways that would be orders of magnitude better but I don't think they could have come up with one much worse than this. Classic Intel?
This was probably cheapest to produce with the highest margin profit.

NUC's in the past were windows only machines. It would be interesting if this device runs Linux.
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#20
watzupken
This is way off the usual NUC form which is typically small. I agree that this is poorly designed when the add in card should have the fan facing the other side of the case to draw fresh air from outside the chassis. Knowing how much power Tiger Lake draws even in a laptop, I am sure this one will run very toasty in the chassis, and with a hot dedicated GPU beside it. And for goodness sake, Intel should do away with the dumb looking skull at the front of the case. What has the skull have anything to do with a NUC?
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#21
Vader
Despite all its shortcomings, it has potential. Hasn't LTT said that these intel CPUs are the fastest for gaming, even when compared against desktop comet and rocket lake? I imagine with better cooling they can boost longer and harder
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#22
Wirko
There's a socketed Intel BGA processor inside, if I understand the news correctly. Yes it can be done but has it ever been done before?
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#23
Dredi
@Ravenlord fix the article. BGA is not a socket! A CPU with BGA as a means of installation is not a socketed CPU.
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#24
Valantar
I'm still utterly baffled by Intel's decision to make these boards in the conventional PCIe orientation rather than put the CPU and everything else on the "back" of the board and thus allow for direct air intake from the outside through a ventilated panel. I mean, how is this solution (with the CPU intake squished up against the GPU) beneficial in any way? Such a basic, easy oversight. It's a proprietary board anyhow, so ... why?
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#25
Operandi
ValantarI'm still utterly baffled by Intel's decision to make these boards in the conventional PCIe orientation rather than put the CPU and everything else on the "back" of the board and thus allow for direct air intake from the outside through a ventilated panel. I mean, how is this solution (with the CPU intake squished up against the GPU) beneficial in any way? Such a basic, easy oversight. It's a proprietary board anyhow, so ... why?
Its almost as if they went out of their way to cripple it. Its that or its the most incompetent engineering ever. Just look at what Apple has done with Mac Pro towers to see is possible with a clean slate design in terms of layout and thermal performance. Intel had (maybe still has) a chance to do something similar, for new open standard form factors to get off of garbage ATX.

The compute being on a card isn't a bad idea; CPU, VRM, and RAM on a slot type card but carve out a dedicated portion of chassis for it and partition it off for the cooling. The other part of chassis would be dedicated to properly physically supporting and cooling the GPU, because lets face it 95% of what a modern PC is is a CPU + RAM and a GPU.

The base smallest form factor could be 1 CPU and 1 GPU like iTX, and you could have a few sizes that go up from there for gaming and workstation machines.
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