Yes this. The tiny PCs tend to have mobile CPUs in them as well which can feel a...

prima-facie · on July 19, 2023

The Tiny/Mini/Micro series from Lenovo/HP/Dell don't use mobile CPUs at all, but the throttled (T) versions of their desktop counterparts. They're even socketed, so you could swap them out.

I use a Dell OptiPlex 7000 Micro having an i5-12500T CPU as my main dev machine and it's very snappy. Add a monitor and mount it on a MFS18 stand and you have a nice all-in-one system.

j45 · on July 19, 2023

This secret might get out now :)

So many cores and threads for so few watts.

user_named · on July 19, 2023

Yeah but for the same money as your Lenovo, you can get something much smaller.

baz00 · on July 19, 2023

It lurks under my desk getting dusty. I don't care. If it's really small it's really hard to make it lurk somewhere. It's either dangling, in some horrible mount or on top of the desk.

There's enough room in the Lenovo for a couple of PCI cards, a couple more disks and a hell of a lot more RAM if I need it too.

j45 · on July 22, 2023

The fact that the 8th gen can handle 64gb ram is a nice surprise

j45 · on July 19, 2023

Physical size generally matters to a certain extent, compared to the small amount of electricity for the computing power.

2 values I like comparing:

- Computing power (cpu benchmark) / per watt is a good comparison.

- After that, comparing those to compute power per dollar ratio really lays a clear picture out.

The NUCs are definitely smaller than the USSF boards (roughly mac mini size), but not enough that it has stood out.