Intel i7 Ultra AIO/Tablet Idea Build and Thoughts

Right now I am still planning to get the skull canyon nuc and touch screen. I want another small screen for my desktop anyway so I will pickup the screen first and check out the touch support.

All going well I will get the NUC after or start coming up with other options.

As always cash is short so plans for nice not exactly necessary PC are always secondary to real life, I still to plan this but time line is flexible.

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Update: This might take some time to actually be an useful update but I have news. You listening @MFZuul?

I have now ordered the screen. 1920x1200 10.1 inch and 10 point capacitive touch. It should be in a nice neat housing but there are other discrepancies in the description of the item. Anyone wondering the link is in the original post. The shipping time is going to be about a month but hopefully closer to two weeks, that's why the update may take a while.

First thing is hooking it up to my desktop when it gets here to test the touch screen. I all ready use rainmeter for monitoring performance and keeping an eye on things like temps, usage and free space and have for a while been wanting to do a proper The Next Generation style LCARS panel. It should end up with all the information complete with graphical niceities like fading a menu items out to show details underneath, like general CPU and load and then fade to show individual core usage and other stats. With this being a touch screen it should work out well, if it is all as advertised. So that should be a decent test and get me back to cleaning the unworking junk off my current set up.

Now the waiting. Waiting with the promise of things to come.

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Yessssssss

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I thought that might get a little attention. I had made one before using the colours and font but it was too small and not the right style. It did not look Star Trek but it did teach me a few things about layout for interactive skins.

I have had the idea for over a year but no reason to make it happen, now I do. Got the reference material too, someone make a Conky LCARS layout and it looks good and functional so I will be looking at things like that to help with this. I also need to completely relearn how to pull information into rainmeter, all that has changed a few times now. Want to try and do it with minimal 3rd party apps to pull from, if I can get all the information from windows itself and the registry with minimal screwing around and changing the text tomlook good I will. Other wise I have used 3rd part before and it functioned excellently so I know that is a good fall back.

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Developments: I had been hoping that a 7th gen of the Skull Canyon NUC with a 7700 variant i7.

Well it is here.

That link is just the first one I saw and am on mobile right now. It appears to be a direct update to the 6i7kyk version but I will have to check all the specs first. Oddly the newer one is cheaper on the same store than the older one, $530 vs $640 which is odd. So either the new 7th gen one because it is cheaper and has the same specs or the older one when it gets cheaper than 520.

Edit: Turns out this is one of the more traditional square NUCs instead of the skull canyon ones. It does have pretty much all of the same connectivity but only one m.2 and the CPU is an i7 7567u compared to the 6770HQ in the older one.

This also explains the price difference. So in will have to see whats up. Still want to skull canyon one more right now.

I always wanted to see a reasonably priced ultrabook with a true quad core i7 like the 6700HQ and above. I understand the frustration with the dual core U-Series i7s. there have good single core perf but for multi tasking, you can feel the lag with lots of chrome tabs and VMs..etc. There is also a problem with laptops that adopt quad core i7s, either they are too thick and ugly with GPU and good cooling and targeted towards gamers Or they come in cheap laptops gimped on the clocks and lack a proper cooling heat sink. Although you don't need that big of a heat sink to cool down a 48W TDP processor Yet no manufacturer seems to get it right. I've dealt with many laptops, most of them not taking more than 60% of that quad core chip due to lack of cooling.

The only ones who seem to get it right are Lenovo thinkpad series. but they're not perfect, no TB port nor a good gpu. so yeah.. i tihnk you're better off getting a nuc and a low profile display that suits your needs. but you need to get or design a solid chassis for both and that could be a challenge. since the displays you linked are too fragile to carry around.

that's just my opinion.
cheers.

Yes I have been considering this but have made no mention if it as I do not yet have the screen or nuc to check the sizes. I already want to attach the nuc to the back of the screen and the screen has 75x75mm mounts on it. So I intend to make some sort of plate or cage to mount the nuc to it, this can include a wider plate to support the entire back of the panel. I can paint it and make it look good. I did not include it but I have been planning it. Hopefully the screen arrives soon and I can get on with sourcing a nuc.

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I have been looking into what I actually need in terms of CPU power to run what I want, mainly Ableton Live 9 Suite, as the 6i7kyk NUC is quite expensive. It comes barebones and needs an m.2 and laptop ddr4 ram to make it work.

I came across these Lenovo ThinkCentre M900x 10LX0002US. It has a i7 6700T in it which is pretty close to the 6770HQ in the NUC but a desktop part. The Lenovo though lacks stuff like the Thunderbolt port though so is not as useful later on as I cant add an external GPU later. So it would be an option but only if I find it cheap.

There are prebuilt ones for sale with 128gb ssds and 8gb RAM for the same price as the bare bones NUC. So same power or better CPU wise, cheaper, but lacking connectivity. No HDMI which while I am all aboard the death to HDMI train my mini monitor is HDMI and not DisplayPort like mky iPad screen. The lenovo is only DP. So I need an adapter. I will have to see if barebones ex-office stock of these are available cheap that I can put an m.2 in rather than the sata ssd they usually come with.

This is just the first to come up, there will be cheaper and it is all ready a a contender to the NUC choice, though not perfect.

I might look back into the desk mini suggested above. My main concerns are the setup of the system and the heat. The way the WiFi is attached and what modules they are and the connectivity ports. Do eh. I am fickle and very picky. I will see.

EDIT: Ooohhh bare motherboard for the Lenovo is only 70 ish

I can drop what I like in that and build what ever cooling/case for it. Noice.

PDF of the m900 specs and options for the Q170 board. http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkCentre/ThinkCentre%20M900x%20Tiny/ThinkCentre%20M900x%20Tiny.pdf

EDIT #2: So if this is a bare board I can install my own CPU. I am not sure if there are any hard limits to the lenovo board, but it is Q170 underneath. With that in mind I looked up the Intel ARK for it and the CPU list, it goes up to 7700.

Is that actually a possibility for me if I get the motherboard from the lenovo or other SFF Q170 based motherboard.

I am guess I needed a bios update and not sure about stuff like flashing without a CPU on SFF system integrator board, is that just a gamer thing?

EDIT #3: So Thin Mini-ITX is a form factor apparently. 6.7x6.7 inches. But none come with WiFi, PCIe breakout or thunderbolt, but are full desktop CPUs really. Damn.

So one end is full mobile NUC and the the other a full desktop, in the middle socketable mobile. Each step cheaper but less features.

So the perfect PC for this project is the Deskmini RX. It unfortunately dissapeared with out a word after CES. So I have emailed Asrock asking if it is a real thing at all. Hopefully I will hear back, but I may not get any useful information or do and can't say.

All I can do now is wait.

Rebirth!

The NUC has now arrived, the tablet screen has been here a while and I have been using it on my main PC but still need to do some thinking before I post all about it.

I am super pleased with the NUC, though have yet to power it up as I still need the RAM and SSD for it. IT was bought second had as from OEMXS on ebay so this was likely ex-display, corporate toys or over stock, all the better for me. As such it was listed as not coming with the second plain, non skull, lid or potentially only plain with no skull, wither way it actually did have both so that was very nice. Further it had all the original parts including screw bag an allen key. Visually there is not a scratch on it at all, it even had the plastic film for the skull lid reapplied to it, so it has only ever been toughed once in its prior life it looks like, not even the screws has scratches or marring at all. If I did not know better I would assume it was opened looked at and put back in its box before it got to me.

Now to round up some final parts and put the thing together. Sorry to say this will likely be another month.

For now take an album full of the NUC with some thoughts.

Comments? Questions? Ask away.

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Some work done on the monitor for this now,

From this thick

To this:

Though it will be thicker by the time I am done, but much better and stronger.

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