82 PCWorld JUNE 2022FEATURE DEEP INSIDE INTEL’S NUC
builders that need a simple, affordable way
to offer a small machine.
“About 80 percent of our sales is actually
as white label ‘ingredients’ for machine
builders,” said McCarson. “They love taking
our board-level solutions and knowing they
just have to drop their own shell on top of it.”
While McCarson declined to name
names, he hinted these “white label” NUCs
appeal most to smaller OEMs lacking the
resources to build an entire miniaturized
desktop design from the ground up.MORE POWER,
MORE PROBLEMS?
It’s clear that McCarson, who was promoted
to his role as vice president and general
manager of the group just last year, wants to
take NUC to a new level. That enthusiasm will
be needed, as NUC’s technical challenges
are likely to grow in the
coming decade.
Enthusiasts know this
problem too well. Top-tier
hardware is growing in size
and power consumption,
requiring larger, more
elaborate cooling systems,
not to mention power
supplies that deliver 1000
watts or more.
It’s this trend that forced
NUC’s enthusiast group to
rapidly expand the size of itsquickest machines. The latest enthusiast
NUC, Dragon Canyon (fave.co/38BkEnu), is
only slightly smaller than a Mini-ITX PC case
like the Lian Li Q58.
“When we started we were doing these
graphics cards,” said Faisal Habib, enthusiast
segment director, pointing to an older Nvidia
Quadro card about 6 inches long. “But then
graphics cards began to be bigger, and we
can’t actually fit it anymore. We had to go and
work with that with Beast Canyon, which
became bigger, and it was great.
“But then Nvidia said, no, we’re going
here.” Habib gestured to a massive Nvidia’s
RTX 3090 on the table. “And again, that
doesn’t work.”
To some, the growth of the largest NUCs
might seem a betrayal of the hardware’s core
mission, and I pressed McCarson on this
point. He sees it another way.NUC’s Compute Element can fit into prepackaged boards or
custom hardware.