Akasa Rolls Out Turing QLX Fanless Case for Intel NUC 9 Pro

[btarunr]

Akasa today rolled out the Turing QLX, a fanless case for the Intel NUC 9 Pro "Quartz Canyon" desktop platform that consists of an Intel NUC 9 Pro Compute Element, and a PCIe backplane. This form-factor is essentially a modern re-imagining of the SBC+backplane desktops from the i486 era. The Turing QLX case is made almost entirely of anodized aluminium, and its body doubles up as a heatsink for the 9th Gen Core or Xeon SoC. You're supposed to replace the cooling assembly of your NUC 9 Pro Compute Element with the cold-plate + heat-pipe assembly of the case. NUC 9 Pro series SBCs compatible with the Turing QLX include the BXNUC9i9QNB, BXNUC9i7QNB, BXNUC9i5QNB, BKNUC9VXQNB, and the BKNUC9V7QNB. The case doesn't include a power supply, you're supposed to use a compatible power brick with the SBC+backplane combo. The Turing QLX measures 212 mm x 150 mm x 220 mm (DxWxH). The company didn't reveal pricing.



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[Valantar]

This is pretty cool (no pun intended, in fact it's probably rather hot ), but the complete lack of ventilation for the AIC chamber is really worrying. There's no way you could run even a low-power GPU in there, meaning this is useful for ... I guess a fanless streaming/capture rig? Not much else though.

 

[mjgraves]

Does this mean that it's possible to buy the Compute Element module/card without the NUC9 basic case? That would be ideal.

I still think that an Airptop-PC3 from Compulab is a superior solution for fanless situations.

 

[Valantar]

Does this mean that it's possible to buy the Compute Element module/card without the NUC9 basic case? That would be ideal.

I still think that an Airptop-PC3 from Compulab is a superior solution for fanless situations.

Likely not. This doesn't include a PSU, daughterboard or anything else really, so you still need the whole NUC to make it work. That's how things usually work with 3rd party NUC cases, so I'd expect it to be the same for the larger NUCs.