ASRock NUC BOX-155H (Intel Core Ultra 7 155H)

[crazyeyesreaper]

ASRock's NUC BOX-155H brings AI to everyday users. Powered by Intel's Meteor Lake architecture and ASRock's AI Guru software, this Mini-PC is ahead of the curve. It handles daily tasks with ease and dives into advanced features like Face Detection, Object Detection, and Image Inpainting, thanks to its AI Inference capabilities.

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[tvshacker]

I still don't understand the pricing on most of these miniPCs/NUCs. At 900$ you can get a laptop with similar (or better) performance, or even an MSI CLAW. How come removing keyboard, screen, battery and other components doesn't bring down the cost significantly?

Also 14 month warranty? Sounds very odd, at first I thought it was a typo on the spec sheet, but you also mentioned it on the conclusion summary so I guess it isn't.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I still don't understand the pricing on most of these miniPCs/NUCs. At 900$ you can get a laptop with similar (or better) performance, or even an MSI CLAW. How come removing keyboard, screen, battery and other components doesn't bring down the cost significantly?

Also 14 month warranty? Sounds very odd, at first I thought it was a typo on the spec sheet, but you also mentioned it on the conclusion summary so I guess it isn't.

Mostly volume sales/efficiencies of scale for laptops. Laptops are easily single boards with fewer layers as the form factor has area to spare while MiniPC Mobos may have many more layers as Mobo space and cooling constraints contend in a less than 125x125mm/5x5" space.

That said the Minisforum 780XTX which equals or tops many of the real world tests and all the games is $400 barebones right now and you can add 32GB DDR5 5600 and a 1TB NVMe for another ~$150 which are better specs than you'll find in most ~$550 laptops.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

I still don't understand the pricing on most of these miniPCs/NUCs. At 900$ you can get a laptop with similar (or better) performance, or even an MSI CLAW. How come removing keyboard, screen, battery and other components doesn't bring down the cost significantly?

Also 14 month warranty? Sounds very odd, at first I thought it was a typo on the spec sheet, but you also mentioned it on the conclusion summary so I guess it isn't.

Also keep in mind more and more laptops are moving towards soldered-on components means no upgrades, if something dies basically trash the unit buy another. At least here memory and SSDs can be replaced more storage can be added and furthermore while I/O is limited you still have more here than you do on many laptops these days.

Also that said, I have yet to have a mini-PC where the fan has failed. Some of the units I have here have run for multiple years non-stop. Meanwhile, ASUS / MSI / HP / DELL laptops of family, friends, and people in the area have come in just after warranty with dead fans, overheating issues, And even if the specifications look good lowered TDP settings resulting in less performance than you may expect. Also unlike laptops most Mini-PCs are far easier to upgrade, repair, and work on / do maintenance on compared to laptops. From a business perspective, many local companies/doctor's offices, etc have moved to these mini-PCs for office use, due to easy deployment, and space-saving designs among other things. They have their place but yes for ASRock the units at least in this case are a bit too high a price here.

 

[SL2]

Laptops are easily single boards with fewer layers as the form factor has area to spare while MiniPC Mobos may have many more layers as Mobo space and cooling constraints contend in a less than 125x125mm/5x5" space.

Lots of laptops are so thin that the fan and heatsink needs to be next to the board, which uses a lot of space. I think you're referring to laptops with integrated graphics
that look like this (link), but those aren't that common anymore. Many new thin models have a small board that looks like this (link).

I think it has more to do with CPU choice, Rembrandt/Phoenix/Hawk point/Meteor lake ususally have higher prices.
Also, 900$ isn't really average for these if you're asking me, especially not for a barebone.

About handhelds, that's a new market, and market shares are up for grabs. It's not saturated like everything else with a x86 CPU.

Also that said, I have yet to have a mini-PC where the fan has failed. Some of the units I have here have run for multiple years non-stop. Meanwhile, ASUS / MSI / HP / DELL laptops of family, friends, and people in the area have come in just after warranty with dead fans, overheating issues, And even if the specifications look good lowered TDP settings resulting in less performance than you may expect.

I'd guess mini-PC's rarely, if ever, ends up on a couch, or a bed.
Laptops gets to collect a lot of dust in homes. But then again I guess the fans are just underpowered and too thin and gives up easier, even though it never happened to me.

Don't forget, we're most likely talking about different sample sizes. I'm pretty sure there are more laptops out there.

Also unlike laptops most Mini-PCs are far easier to upgrade, repair, and work on / do maintenance on compared to laptops.

It's getting harder to find a laptop model with replacable RAM/SSD/WLAN, but they still exist, like the one in my first link.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Lots of laptops are so thin that the fan and heatsink needs to be next to the board, which uses a lot of space. I think you're referring to laptops with integrated graphics
that look like this (link), but those aren't that common anymore. Many new thin models have a small board that looks like this (link).

I think it has more to do with CPU choice, Rembrandt/Phoenix/Hawk point/Meteor lake ususally have higher prices.
Also, 900$ isn't really average for these if you're asking me, especially not for a barebone.

About handhelds, that's a new market, and market shares are up for grabs. It's not saturated like everything else with a x86 CPU.


I'd guess mini-PC's rarely, if ever, ends up on a couch, or a bed.
Laptops gets to collect a lot of dust in homes. But then again I guess the fans are just underpowered and too thin and gives up easier, even though it never happened to me.

Don't forget, we're most likely talking about different sample sizes. I'm pretty sure there are more laptops out there.


It's getting harder to find a laptop model with replacable RAM/SSD/WLAN, but they still exist, like the one in my first link.

My fathers accountant has had 3 laptops all three sit on a desk in a clean office. 1 Toshiba 1 Dell 1 ASUS. All three had fan failures just outside of warranty. Units total run time was low as he's old he only used the systems for work. The only one that remained somewhat usable after fan failure was the ASUS since it had dual cooling fans. But yeah I see a lot of fan failures on laptops these days. Usually around the 2 yr mark. For the Toshiba I had to find a junk unit to get a proper fan assembly the Dell I was able to find a used fan assembly on ebay for the ASUS thankfully I was able to just order a new fan and frame no problem. Funnily enough the Toshiba and Dell were more business focused the ASUS was actually a gaming laptop but it was on discount at the time. That unit is far more repairable than the others.

 

[SL2]

I will never get a laptop as easy to open as the first Elitebooks (G1/G2) again, those days are gone.. the only thing missing was a CPU in a socket, but it didn't bother me. Going from dual core to 7% faster dual core was pointless.

This is what I'm talking about, at 76 seconds. That metal lid!

 

[ADB1979]

I would have liked to have seen this tested against the Ryzen 8840U which is faster than the 7840U across all metrics and often gets double digit performance increases over the 7840U at the same power draw.

The Intel 155H is overall a good product, but as it is Intel's newest thing it is only fair to test it against AMD's newest thing (that is available and has been since before the 155H and there is an Asrock 4x4 version (otherwise seemingly identical to the one in these tests as it is a drop in chip replacement (i.e. no redesign needed, just a different BIOS)).

Also, why is the power usage missing in graph form, and likewise the associated noise.?

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

I would have liked to have seen this tested against the Ryzen 8840U which is faster than the 7840U across all metrics and often gets double digit performance increases over the 7840U at the same power draw.

The Intel 155H is overall a good product, but as it is Intel's newest thing it is only fair to test it against AMD's newest thing (that is available and has been since before the 155H and there is an Asrock 4x4 version (otherwise seemingly identical to the one in these tests as it is a drop in chip replacement (i.e. no redesign needed, just a different BIOS)).

Also, why is the power usage missing in graph form, and likewise the associated noise.?

That would require some 8840u systems to actually be available to purchase. Yes Asrock has the 8840u, except I cant find it for sale anywhere.

I will never get a laptop as easy to open as the first Elitebooks (G1/G2) again, those days are gone.. the only thing missing was a CPU in a socket, but it didn't bother me. Going from dual core to 7% faster dual core was pointless.

This is what I'm talking about, at 76 seconds. That metal lid!

I quite miss the CPU socket. It was a lot more then a 7% jump, especially if you were going from a pentium to a high end core 2 duo. 3x the cache and 2x the clock speed was a HUGE bump. Or one of the core i3s to core i7, increased cache and a good 40% performance bump under heavy load.

 

[ADB1979]

That would require some 8840u systems to actually be available to purchase. Yes Asrock has the 8840u, except I cant find it for sale anywhere.

This is not a Mini PC but I recently saw it discussed, it uses the same chip but is not a Mini PC, so it seems that the chips are out there but likely that demand is outstripping supply and the supply is currently limited, and all of the products that I can see for sale are mobile, and there are a couple of gaming handhelds such as the latest version of the GPD Win4.

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And the Minisforum V3.

Minisforum V3

Minisforum V3 is the world's 1st AMD 3-in-1 Windows tablet, with AMD Ryzen™ 7 8840U CPU 8C/16T and AMD Radeon™ 780M GPU.Equipped with AMD Ryzen™ AI, the V3 features an innovative integrated AI engine.

store.minisforum.uk

So, point taken, they are not currently available, especially in mini PC form.

 

[chrcoluk]

My NUC's or all from ali nowhere near $900, most recent one is insane value considering current market.

However the newest NUC the case is 2/3 the size of the older unit, which is a big deal as the case is the heatsink, and also the sides arent part of the heatsink whilst they are on the older unit, this I think all contributes to it running hotter.

I decided to use one now in place of my laptop, as the problem with laptops aside from them being bulkier is that when you need to buy a new one you are replacing everything, the screen etc. which makes it cost inefficient, plus they might whitelist components in the bios like the wifi.