Intel Exiting the PC Business as it Stops Investment in the Intel NUC : homelab

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

One of the few things I've actually liked from Intel. Of course it's not profitable enough.

I hate that "profit" is the driving decision on everything. Does this product have value for our customer? Do our customers like this product. I actually know dozens of folks who enjoy and use NUCs. For hobbies, for work.

One of the most dystopian parts of modern society is that we got co-opted into believing that companies exist to make their owners/investors rich when they should be a vehicle for a group of people (employees) accomplish a goal that's greater than an individual can accomplish. That means it's OKAY to make a decision that results in less profit if it helps to achieve the company's vision!

Providing consumers with budget friendly hobby PC's should be what Intel's mission is. Getting computing accessible, easy to use, compact.

Doesn't provide enough shareholder value 🤢

Edit: Also since this article focuses on Intel competing with OEMS. Why shouldn't the OEMs face competition? Intel introduced this format because OEMs were just shipping the same design and format, rinse and repeat like a money printing device. No innovation. Why? Shareholder value 🤢

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A really interesting alternative to the "profit at the expense of all else" model is a worker coop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative

I really hope these make a resurgence.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

This makes me think of the original Oneida company which was also a commune. I don't want to be that attached to a company but they flourished.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Providing consumers with budget friendly hobby PC’s should be what Intel’s mission is.

As a publicly traded, for-profit entity, it's mission is to create value for shareholders. Shareholder value is its product, not computers or microchips. Those are nothing more than strategies for creating that shareholder value.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Exactly. That's the "problem". It's a vehicle for greed not efficiency. Why because efficiency is defined by your intended effect. The cost of the world's resources, employees quality of life are all sacrificed for ever intensifying levels of "profit" efficiency. Which is absorbed by who?

The largest investors in the world for the most part.

It's a pipeline of inequality. Systems that were intended to be open and give power to the majority circumvented to look fair but actually provision gross inequality.

And what is the culture? You too could be a billionaire if you work hard enough. If you just contribute to the same system that is promoting inequality you too can rise up.

Am I advocating for socialism or communism? No but it's fair to say that Capitalism has failed as well.

There needs to be something better / newer that isn't as vulnerable to exploitation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

If you want to make a small dent, try and buy what you can from non-profits (hardmode), or at least private companies.

That means fuckall in the big tech arenas, but it can be done for more other things than I thought before I started doing it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What you've said is true, but it is also true that it sucks when good products go by the wayside because they don't provide sufficient shareholder value.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It absolutely sucks. And it's total bullshit. I don't mean to in any way come across as ok with it. I just think it's important to highlight what's driving things like this, because we very often have in mind that businesses exist to serve customer's needs.

And they do. It's just that consumers aren't their customers. They're in the business of selling stocks and ROI, not consumer products. The consumer products are just how they mine that value for shareholders, and like any miner, they're always going to be seekin gout the richest veins.

We deserve an Intel, or an AMD, or a whoever, that has a mission of creating quality and accessible products for the public. But under our current set of systems, we're never going to get that, because these organizations and industries don't work for us.

We're just a resource to them, to be exploited for their real customers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But isn't ARM just a hell of a lot better than any of these intel chips?

Everything I've seen that's small form factor and low power is going ARM, and the list of things not compatible with ARM is getting real small.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lower power is ARM, but aren't X86 CPUs not still a lot faster? (While my Raspberry Pi 4 can barely run a Minecraft server, my 50$ SFF can run 2 servers at the same time and still has plenty of CPU cycles left)

Power consumption is higher ofcourse, but I exchanged 3 Pi's (3*10W) with one SFF (25W) so it's fine :-)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s a design consideration, not an actual problem. Remember the pi is also not running natively, and that the quite good M chips from Apple are ARM-based.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I don't fully understand. What's the design consideration? My biggest problem is actually that the least power hungry CPU (arm) has very little options if you want to run a server with a bit more processing power.

If you mean that Minecraft is not native.. this is Java , so everything runs in the JVM independent of platform.

I might need a Mac Mini as a server and install Linux on it (is that still an option?) like some kind of NUC...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Use case for those NUCs wasn't embedded devices but basically workstations that required nominal resources and no external GPU. Thinnish clients.

Additionally I like them as a small host able service box. I think they make great mini k8s clusters.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The oems still compete with each other and probably have a more effective distribution network due to shipping much higher volumes

Honestly the intel bucks were always so tall compared to the other manufacturers much slimmer IL offerings. It makes sense to get a computer that fits better behind a screen on the vesa mount.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There are a lot of alternative tiny/mini/micro/NUC like PCs available now.

When intel introduced the NUC it was fairly unique.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Totally! There are a ton of used workstations on eBay for cheap too. I got a Lenovo M715q with a Ryzen 5 APU for under $100USD. I can’t afford not to have a garage desktop at that price.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Got any recommendations? I'm still within the return policy of a NUC I just bought.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I started picking up Used Tiny / Mini / Micro systems. I currently have a Lenovo M910q with an i7 7th gen running my frigate dockers. I got it from a local second had PC shop, but you can find them on eBay and Facebook market place often. Asus makes a NUC like box, and there are Aliexpress brands like beelink etc.

A lot of options.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm shopping for servers right now and was distressed at the NUC situation (news to me). 4 months later your comment and this link are still helpful. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Serve the home has a bunch of reviews on really powerful AMD mini PCs now as well.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

framework mainboards in dedicated cases could end up being a better option for making a small form-factor desktop with easily upgradable components

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

For a hot minute there I misread, I thought Intel was leaving the business off making PC parts entirely, not just these small form computers. Really rustled my jimmies

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I drew the same conclusion initially from the headline. I was like .... Wut!?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

They make almost 50% of their revenue from their Client Computing Group, which is the desktop/laptop (non-server/non-datacenter) division, so it would be a huge WTF if they stopped serving that market!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That’s a shame. I love NUCs for homelab purposes. Although they do seem to run pretty hot.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

kinda never made sense for me. too much power for a nas and a thin client, too little power for anything more

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I just bought a this NUC from Amazon for $750. Can anyone here provide their feedback? Do you think I should I return it and purchase something else instead? I just want a tiny gaming PC that works with my external GPU enclosure (which uses Thunderbolt 3).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

There's been about a billion SFF PCs show up in my google news feed over the last 2-3 weeks, so I don't think it'll be a particularly huge loss.