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  • osamabinrobot - Sunday, May 18, 2014 - link

    I just built this unit for myself at work and have been digging it.
  • kgh00007 - Sunday, May 18, 2014 - link

    Just some further information for anyone looking to buy one of these.
    This nuc can actually run 2133MHz RAM (G.Skill Ripjaws) and the TDP can also be increased in the bios or using the Intel Extreme Tunig Utility. Its possible to increase the TDP from 15W to 25W or 30W by adjusting the Sustained Mode Power Limit in the bios. This can also be done dynamically with the Intel XTU and be set to load different TDP's on a per app basis.
    This is pretty cool and improves gaming on the nuc considerably as it allows the iGPU to sustain higher clocks. Temps remain the same, around 80degC, but the fan noise does increase a lot as the fan ramps up. I have it set to increase the TDP to 25W for games but to remain at 15W the rest of the time. As far as I know only the i5 versions of the nuc have these adjustments.
    I'm really happy with my nuc hooked up to the living room TV, its an awesome little machine.

    And mine did come with a power cord!
  • Aikouka - Sunday, May 18, 2014 - link

    Amazon actually has a toggle to switch between units with and without a power cord. When I bought my first i3 Haswell NUC, it came without a power cord, but Amazon was rather generous in giving me a partial refund on it, which was more than enough to buy a cable.
  • ganeshts - Sunday, May 18, 2014 - link

    Thanks for the extra info. Pretty sure readers would love to experiment with this feature. To be frank, I wasn't even aware of this and Intel never advertised in their briefings / brochures.
  • kgh00007 - Tuesday, May 20, 2014 - link

    No worries!
  • skiboysteve - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    Wow I am doing this for sure. I have my NUC in a very loud industrial rack.
  • MonkeyPaw - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    I have an i5 Haswell Yoga 2, and it even has a "dust cleaning" mode. I haven't had to use it, but my guess is it ramps the fan up to clean out the cooling area. Pretty nice if it actually works.
  • extide - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    Typically dust cleaning modes actually run the fans in reverse for a little while.
  • SeanFL - Sunday, May 18, 2014 - link

    Built one of these a couple months back for audio editing and it works great. Quite pleased with the performance and the size is amazing. Went with the Samsung 840 evo msata on a recent build and it's even more impressive.
  • Aikouka - Sunday, May 18, 2014 - link

    Ganesh, what Wi-Fi drivers did you use? I'm curious because I own two i3 NUCs, and while I use the same Intel card in both and the same router (FW V1.0.3.24_1.1.20), the performance is awful. It only connects via 802.11n, and while the performance might be alright for a bit, it usually degrades into 1-5Mbps -- but it doesn't actually transmit anything. I've been tempted to try different drivers, but I just end up getting annoyed by the whole thing and plugging in an Ethernet cable. =P

    On that note, I have noticed some odd issues with the Nighthawk. For example, I use a rather awkward generated password for my WiFi, and I don't feel like typing it in on devices like a PS Vita or a 3DS. So, I use WPS to set it up. Unfortunately, WPS on the Nighthawk seems to wreak havoc on the router's WiFi system as it just becomes incredibly unresponsive after using WPS.
  • ganeshts - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    The Wi-Fi drivers used for testing were installed by Wireless_17.0.0_De164.exe downloaded from Intel's AC7260 downloads site on 29th April.

    I believe the driver version is: 17.0.0.34

    I have also seen some strange behaviour with the AC7260 card -- it performs worse than Realtek's 1x1 in some cases, and much behind Broadcom's 2x2 solutions in the PC space. Not sure how much of that is related to the presence of Broadcom in the Nightjawk platform (will present exact numbers in the upcoming reviews)

    I have not used WPS on the Nighthawk, but it is entirely possible -- I too had some issues of slow network speeds with certain clients when using the Nighthawk for the first couple of months, but one of the recent firmware updates made it much better
  • tipoo - Sunday, May 18, 2014 - link

    I'm curious about that 250 dollar AMD Brix APU based system in this same form factor. Seems like a lot of compute for that much money.
  • ayejay_nz - Sunday, May 18, 2014 - link

    Are you referring to the GB-BXA8-5545? I'm really looking forward to seeing a review on that unit! Could be a really well priced 'HTPC' streaming box.
  • tipoo - Sunday, May 18, 2014 - link

    I think it might be, it's the one detailed here. I'd love an Anandtech review of it too

    http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/04/review-giga...

    It helps that I get free windows licences, but it seems like an awefully competent computer for 250, especially with an SSD, quad core, and 8GB RAM.
  • nirolf - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    I'm hoping for a Kabini BRIX. With some form digital audio output it would be just great.
  • skiboysteve - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    I just ordered the top of the line mSATA Intel NUCs for a work demo system. Was perfect size and had mounting bracket. I didn't need WiFi either and it had all the ports I needed. Great deal.

    Hilarious though, when you open the box it has a speaker that goes off with the Intel inside sound. "dun.... Dun dun dun dun"
  • wintermute000 - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    Where are the dual nic models? Would be over them like a rash (quiet always on low power esxi, vcenter+pfsense+ad in a box)
  • fackamato - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    Use VLAN
  • adityarjun - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    Instead of writing "Habey BIS-6922" and "Logic Super Sayian ML320" , just write the relevant configuration or something.
    Habey whatever doesn't mean anything to me and I just wanted a quick look at benchmarks to see how it would compare to say an i3 or i5 base model cpu.
    I wanted to see whether it was about as powerful as a i5 4440 or i3 3220. Please include relevant configurations in your charts!
  • ganeshts - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    Benchmark numbers depend on CPU as well as DRAM configuration (CAS latency / speed). I have been down that path before and the graph just gets too cluttered. That is why we have the table at the bottom of the first page where the dropdown indicates what configuration and price each of the compared systems is.
  • AgeOfPanic - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    I use a Haswell core i3 version of the Gigabyte Brix with a OCZ Vertex SSD and I really like the system. Great form factor and mounting it behind the monitor makes for a very clean system. I don't think I'll go back to a different form factor for normal desktop systems again.
    To reply to the issue with the Intel AC760. I replaced the standard wifi card in the Brix for a Intel AC760 version. I use the standard drivers from Windows 8.1. I cannot reliably connect to the 5 GHz network of my Asus AC66u router. It works OK on the 2.4 GHz band, but I'm a little disappointed in this. Seems the drivers definitely need to mature.
  • Laststop311 - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    This nuc is only good if u want to turn your dumb tv into a smart tv that's smarter than all tv's with built in smart functionalities. Gaming on ULV graphics = boooooooo. If you want to game in this tiny form factor you should get an amd apu. 5000 blows
  • dblagent - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    Quick question that I assume I already know the answer to, these will support dual video output correct? I assume they will, and if so then I could see moving my entire office over to these in the future. I just built 40 desktops and building these would be a world easier.

    They all have Samsung SSDs so this new 2.5 form factor support will be a savior, though I'm set for several years now. Maybe as I get some more users I will build these over my custom built solution. Would save me some grey hair!
  • ptmmac - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    Am I the only person who would like to see a single slot Pci for the 750 ti from nvidia in something this size?. I realize it would increase the power envelope, but it would also make gaming practical. AMD is supposedly working on a competitor for the 750 ti and this would give the purchaser a better set of options.
  • run - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link

    The hard disk is where the operating system and all software applications are stored. Because of this, a properly working drive is essential in the operation of any computer or laptop.
  • CSMR - Tuesday, May 20, 2014 - link

    Questions:
    1. How well damped is the 2.5" hard drive cage? I think this is mainly for regular HDDs (since you get mSATA for SDDs) so I am interested in how noisy HDDs are in this case.

    2. The TrueCrypt benchmark doesn't look so good. Does this suggest that with native Windows whole-drive encryption, that encryption will limit read/write speed? I would have expected with AES-NI to get hardware encryption and decryption at closer to the SATA limit of 6Gbps.
  • darckhart - Tuesday, May 20, 2014 - link

    ganesh, have you tried installing windows 8 via uefi msata gpt on this intel nuc? i updated the nuc bios to 25, but the msata (crucial m550 256gb) is still undetectable via uefi. shows up just fine in legacy bios. wondering if this is a nuc issue.
  • prophet001 - Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - link

    It was a mission to find out what NUC stood for. Might want to include that in the future.

    :)
  • kaymack - Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - link

    This article seems to imply that the D54250WYKH model has only the 2.5" drive bay available for storage and no MSATA slot. Based on info I've seen elsewhere, I was under the impression that the D54250WYKH model will accept an MSATA drive on the board AND a 2.5" drive in the bay...so one could have say a Crucial M550 MSATA as the boot drive for OS and programs and also contain a 2.5" HDD or SSD for additional storage of data, music, video, etc. Can anyone confirm this?
  • Jas448 - Saturday, May 31, 2014 - link

    I have installed windows 8.1 to a Crucial 240 M500 msata and using a sanDisk SSD250Gb as a 2nd drive in the 2.5 inch bay. No problems at all. The only problem I had was Windows would not install from a USB3 flashdrive but would from a USB2 Flashdrive
  • darckhart - Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - link

    Yes, it has both slots.
  • Be Careful - Friday, May 30, 2014 - link

    I would like you to read this article:
    http://www.jimstonefreelance.com/corevpro.html
  • Tomik - Tuesday, December 9, 2014 - link

    This guy is a racist. I was interested in his article until I understood that he's a racist, then he lost me.
  • Android Bob - Wednesday, July 2, 2014 - link

    Bought an Intel D54250WYKH NUC a few days ago and installed Win8.1 on it.

    Used 8GB 1866MHz G.Skill F3-1866C10D-8GRSL memory with no problems thus far.

    Intel 7260 Wireless-AC gives me 200Mbps real throughput on 5GHz 40MHz as measured to a NAS via a Linksys E4200v1 router running TomatoUSB fw. Using 17.0.5.8 Intel driver on Wireless-AC card and it's very stable with no issues noted.

    Was looking for an every day 'Desktop' with low noise, low power usage and the D54250WYKH provides that and then some.

    Not looking to do any 'real' gaming on my NUC, but as a reference I was able to get 46000 3DMark Ice Storm score with a stock win8.1 build and G.Skill 1866MHz memory.
    With a small TDP increase this can be pushed out to a score of 48000 on 3DMark Ice Storm.
  • Tomik - Tuesday, December 9, 2014 - link

    Does anyone have the spec for the required SATA cable for this unit?
  • xbn - Thursday, December 11, 2014 - link

    Will it fit BOTH and mSata drive and a regular 2½" SATA drive?

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