JUNE 2022 PCWorld 81Perhaps the most interesting is
Intel’s Compute Element, a
successor to Intel’s Compute
Card (fave.co/3wt5YQq).
Though it no longer slots
into a convenient external
connector and lacks the
futuristic look of the Compute
Card, the Element delivers up to
12th-gen Core i9 processors in
a package that’s barely larger
than a credit card.
“People love small compute,
but in a world where we
required the receiver to be
exactly what we sold, it was too
confined,” said Brown. “They
didn’t want to always use the exact box we
have. So we simplified it into the Compute
Element, and started giving people building
blocks.”
This takes the modular design of Beast
Canyon and Dragon Canyon to a new level.
While NUC sells boards for the Compute
Element, users can also design their boards to
precisely fit their size and I/O requirements.
“[NUC is], for the most part, these
invisible solutions all over the place. Almost
every fast-food restaurant you go to has a little
touch screen; if you pop open the back, you’ll
see a NUC in there,” said McCarson.
And it’s not just fast-food kiosks that
could be a NUC in disguise. Intel also
provides NUC hardware to OEM systemtest lab at the Hawthorne Farms campus in
Hillsboro, Oregon, I was shown a series of
“bento boxes” used to test dozens of NUCs
at a time. Named after Marc Bento, a
technical marketing engineer who designed
the boxes during his internship, they can be
used to rigorously test NUC samples to hunt
down bugs or stability issues.
The NUC group is proud of its reputation
for reliability and more than once reminded
me of NUC’s three-year standard warranty, a
sign of confidence in an industry that often
provides just one year of coverage.
This doesn’t just apply to the more well-
known 4×4 NUCs, either. The group has
expanded to a variety of models including
passively cooled and ruggedized NUCs.
This NUC uses a Compute Element for less compact but more
modular design.