Is Skull Canyon really that bad?

[PenPoint]

I am willing to buy a Skull Canyon, which is the Intel NUC which you guys all know.

However I heard that Skull Canyon cannot dissipate its heat very well, and because of that, it constantly throttles.

I wonder if this is really true, and I wonder the price $570 worth it.

And one more... I am going to get this somewhere around late this year or coming January/February.

Shoud I wait for the next-gen Kaby Lake based NUC?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Do you need a nuc or small computer?

 

Id personally get a laptop.

[PenPoint]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Do you need a nuc or small computer?

 

Id personally get a laptop.

You're maybe right, but I like the concept Skull Canyon has.

[NeoSk11zle]

Just now, PenPoint said:

You're maybe right, but I like the concept Skull Canyon has.

rlly m8

[D2ultima]

11 minutes ago, PenPoint said:

I am willing to buy a Skull Canyon, which is the Intel NUC which you guys all know.

However I heard that Skull Canyon cannot dissipate its heat very well, and because of that, it constantly throttles.

I wonder if this is really true, and I wonder the price $570 worth it.

And one more... I am going to get this somewhere around late this year or coming January/February.

Shoud I wait for the next-gen Kaby Lake based NUC?

Yup it's pretty bad. Especially since the $570 pricetag doesn't include things necessary to run (I believe it's missing RAM/storage/etc). You'd be far better off getting a decent laptop or something.

[PenPoint]

5 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

Yup it's pretty bad. Especially since the $570 pricetag doesn't include things necessary to run (I believe it's missing RAM/storage/etc). You'd be far better off getting a decent laptop or something.

Hmm... okay. Thanks for the advice.

[scornwell]

I'd disagree with the other posters, some thermal throttling does occur under load but it's never below the base 2.6Ghz, really not that bad. Horses for courses, if you think the form factor is worth the increased cost then I'd go for it. If not, there are many small form-factor case options out there. 

 

I'm running a Skull Canyon as a HTPC, Lightroom workstation, development machine, casual gaming machine and LiquidSky client and I'm pretty happy with it so far.

[PenPoint]

14 hours ago, scornwell said:

I'd disagree with the other posters, some thermal throttling does occur under load but it's never below the base 2.6Ghz, really not that bad. Horses for courses, if you think the form factor is worth the increased cost then I'd go for it. If not, there are many small form-factor case options out there. 

 

I'm running a Skull Canyon as a HTPC, Lightroom workstation, development machine, casual gaming machine and LiquidSky client and I'm pretty happy with it so far.

I was hoping for a real user's respond and here it is! Thanks for your kind comment

[D2ultima]

14 hours ago, scornwell said:

I'd disagree with the other posters, some thermal throttling does occur under load but it's never below the base 2.6Ghz, really not that bad.

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/246907-how-mobile-i7-cpus-work/

 

I don't consider that acceptable, and neither should you.

[scornwell]

8 hours ago, D2ultima said:

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/246907-how-mobile-i7-cpus-work/

 

I don't consider that acceptable, and neither should you.

Interesting post I guess, but it's primarily an opinion piece and in the context of the OP's question, I don't really see how it's relevant. 

 

What I find acceptable is up to me to decide, not you to dictate, thanks.

[Pendragon]

1 hour ago, scornwell said:

Interesting post I guess, but it's primarily an opinion piece and in the context of the OP's question, I don't really see how it's relevant. 

 

What I find acceptable is up to me to decide, not you to dictate, thanks.

Actually, what is acceptable is what it's rated to do. If it's rated at 3.1 4 core turbo, it should stay there in a sustained load. People like you are why the laptop industry is going to hell because you find things like this "acceptable" which is why you have Razer trying to stuff 1060s in their 14in laptops. What a fucking joke. 

[D2ultima]

1 hour ago, scornwell said:

What I find acceptable is up to me to decide, not you to dictate, thanks.

You know, you're completely correct on the fact that it is up for you to decide. Hence why I said "should" in my post.

 

The point of linking the guide is because it uses a mobile CPU and throttles, and therefore I was informing you that it should never go below boost.

 

I don't get why it's unacceptable for desktops to do that kind of stuff but acceptable for laptops and smaller AIOs like that NUC

[Eason85]

I use a Skull Canyon with the core.

 

It doesn't throttle with the core- temps are around 48-55C while using chrome, and go up to 80C with extended gaming. However, if you use it with the iGPU for gaming, then yes it will generate more heat. I would not recommend using it for gaming without a TB3 GPU. I like mine, though. I intend to replace it with the right laptop one day and use it as a TV box.

[scornwell]

12 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

Actually, what is acceptable is what it's rated to do. If it's rated at 3.1 4 core turbo, it should stay there in a sustained load. People like you are why the laptop industry is going to hell because you find things like this "acceptable" which is why you have Razer trying to stuff 1060s in their 14in laptops. What a fucking joke. 

Oh calm down. 

 

First, you need to read Intel's description of their Turbo technology: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/turbo-boost/turbo-boost-technology.html then come back explain where you got the idea that turbo should continue indefinitely under sustained load. Because they way I read it, you're completely wrong.

 

At the end of the day it's about buying a product that does what you want. For development, Lightroom editing, light gaming and as a LiquidSky client, the Skull Canyon works great, with no performance issues that I've seen. From my real-world experience the NUC rarely throttles and even when it does, it's only under sustained heavy load and it still maintains it's base speed. That's all I expected when I bought it. 

 

If it's not for you then that's fine, but getting pissy because it works for someone else is ridiculous. 

[scornwell]

19 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

You know, you're completely correct on the fact that it is up for you to decide. Hence why I said "should" in my post.

 

The point of linking the guide is because it uses a mobile CPU and throttles, and therefore I was informing you that it should never go below boost.

 

I don't get why it's unacceptable for desktops to do that kind of stuff but acceptable for laptops and smaller AIOs like that NUC

You were telling me what I should think, mincing words doesn't change that. 

 

Here's a link for you:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/turbo-boost/turbo-boost-technology.html

 

[Pendragon]

@D2ultima ur turn. I gave up. 

[D2ultima]

8 minutes ago, scornwell said:

You were telling me what I should think, mincing words doesn't change that. 

 

Here's a link for you:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/turbo-boost/turbo-boost-technology.html

 

hai hai, pointless-link-user.

 

If turbo boost is not held, the CPU ITSELF returns throttle flags in the MSR registers. Why not use Intel XTU to read said throttle flags? If you had actually read my guide, you'd understand that.

 

If you still insist on telling me and other people a thermally throttling $600 RAM-less/Storage-less device with an already low power chip is fine, then you're simply beyond help. I hope if you ever get a pre-built desktop for any reason that thermal throttles its turbo you say it's fine.

 

Also, know that people like you are THE reason why OEMs and ODMs find it fine to screw people over with products like this. Bad design, bad QC/QA, overpricedness, whatever you want to name. You trying to spin it as being "fine" and defending it means they'll do it again.

[scornwell]

hai hai, pointless thread bumper. 

 

I'm telling you if a device meets a consumer's expectations, at a price that's acceptable to them then yes, that's fine for them. It may not be fine for you and that's ok too. But "acceptable" is a matter of opinion, opinions differ and that's also fine. Shoving your opinion down people's throats and insisting they're the downfall of the mobile computing industry, simply because their opinion differs is not. 

 

Perhaps your point would come over a little better if you and your little friend put aside the arrogant, smarmy condescension and started behaving like human beings. 

[yenic]

I have a Skull Canyon NUC among others for my business. They're awesome, you won't find a smaller, faster system. The use cases for these dwarf anything else out there. There's no guarantee of the turbo speeds being maintained for any longer than the thermal restraints allow. Non-issue. If you want to run boost speeds all the time, you can put a bigger heatsink on a NUC if you really want or care that much. Many companies sell these- go inform yourself before speaking about things you don't know about.

 

NUCs are for business owners like myself. I have them running cameras, running critical services, digital signage, point of sale systems and I've found them so good that I use one as my desktop for gaming like some of the others here.

 

Yes, if you're a kid who treats computers as "upgradable consoles" you're going to have the low opinion of Skull Canyon that people in this thread do. In the real world if you're making any money, my NUCs enable me to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars are year and are simply the replacement for desktop machines.

 

Such smug attitude in this thread by a couple of nerds. I can build any desktop I want, no one here is misinformed. I've built desktops for 30 years, longer than most here have been alive. It's time to move on with the advent of NUCs and Razer Stealth/Core setups that are just more versatile.

 

The performance gap between an i7-6770HQ and i7-6700K is ~20%. That's a mobile chip vs the high-end standard desktop chip. The focus has been on power efficiency for a decade+, that gap is only going to get smaller. The writing is on the wall.

 

So don't blame "people like me" for the state of the market. Spend your time learning why the market has evolved as it is.

[PenPoint]

9 hours ago, yenic said:

I have a Skull Canyon NUC among others for my business. They're awesome, you won't find a smaller, faster system. The use cases for these dwarf anything else out there. There's no guarantee of the turbo speeds being maintained for any longer than the thermal restraints allow. Non-issue. If you want to run boost speeds all the time, you can put a bigger heatsink on a NUC if you really want or care that much. Many companies sell these- go inform yourself before speaking about things you don't know about.

 

NUCs are for business owners like myself. I have them running cameras, running critical services, digital signage, point of sale systems and I've found them so good that I use one as my desktop for gaming like some of the others here.

 

Yes, if you're a kid who treats computers as "upgradable consoles" you're going to have the low opinion of Skull Canyon that people in this thread do. In the real world if you're making any money, my NUCs enable me to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars are year and are simply the replacement for desktop machines.

 

Such smug attitude in this thread by a couple of nerds. I can build any desktop I want, no one here is misinformed. I've built desktops for 30 years, longer than most here have been alive. It's time to move on with the advent of NUCs and Razer Stealth/Core setups that are just more versatile.

 

The performance gap between an i7-6770HQ and i7-6700K is ~20%. That's a mobile chip vs the high-end standard desktop chip. The focus has been on power efficiency for a decade+, that gap is only going to get smaller. The writing is on the wall.

 

So don't blame "people like me" for the state of the market. Spend your time learning why the market has evolved as it is.

Actually I'm a quite-an-old-kid(lol), and of course I don't make any money.

But I'm not a game enthusiast, and I'm not going to run any hardcore tasks, so that's why I'm considering the purchase of Skull Canyon.

Skull Canyon, at least I think, can do everything I want such as playing high resolution videos or just making documents or presentations, etc.

So thank you so much for informing me a great deal of nice facts about Skull Canyon!

Unless the next-gen Kaby Lake-based highend NUC comes out quick, I'll get Skull Canyon 

 

Oh, and if you think I misunderstood something, would you please notify me? I'm not an English native speaker

[D2ultima]

On 9/12/2016 at 10:57 PM, scornwell said:

Perhaps your point would come over a little better if you and your little friend put aside the arrogant, smarmy condescension and started behaving like human beings. 

I don't care about his feelings. He is factually wrong (about turbo boost and throttling) and he is informing other people that it's fine, because he has low standards.

 

Even if I were to revoke my statement about him having higher standards, I still do not want him telling other people that thermal throttling, non-turboing systems are "functioning properly" and have no problems, because that's false. And to that effect, I have to publicly state this in response to him.

 

He can have a problem with me, hate me, never want to see/hear from me again, block me, talk crap about me everywhere. As long as he isn't telling people that a system designed so that its internal components do not function properly is A-ok and deserves money "because it's small" or "because it's a laptop" or whatever, I have no further issues. In other words, if he must make statements about how it's fine, make certain to add some modifier to the sentence to state in no uncertain terms that it is purely his opinion... like "it doesn't hold turbo and it throttles, but I don't mind it personally. You might." or something similar.

 

On 9/12/2016 at 10:57 PM, scornwell said:

insisting they're the downfall of the mobile computing industry, simply because their opinion differs is not.

As for this part... for you to make this statement, you honestly aren't very intimate with the mobile computing industry over the last few years. There have been great strides to give consumers exceedingly shitty products and product designs, but as long as it succeeds in whatever the random buzzword of the year is, people lap it up. This is the problem. Consumers don't care if their CPU sits at 95c watching twitch.tv if the laptop looks nice and has a 3K or 4K screen (see: Razer Blade Stealth). Consumers don't care if everything is soldered to the board and as soon as a single stick of RAM fails they must replace their entire machine (see: Razer Blade 2016).

 

If the industry would reject low-effort and/or overpriced trash products, maybe we might actually get somewhere. The rate we're going at now ends up where OEMs think $5000 notebooks with two $1200 USD GPUs soldered to the motherboard with a $600 CPU soldered to the motherboard that can't perform like a socketed $325 desktop CPU is perfectly fine. If a single thing dies one day out of warranty it's a $4000 paperweight, and most of them only come with 1 year too. $2800 machines like the Blade Pro you even open it and your warranty is void. ASUS you swap HDD from slot 1 to slot 2 and your system warranty is void on a $3000+ laptop.

 

So yes, people who think this is "ok", buy them, and say "I want more", are in fact the downfall of the mobile computing industry.

 

If people would treat laptops with even 3/4 the level of scrutiny they did for their desktops and desktop parts, we'd explosively improve because nobody would buy all the crap on the market. Just because something has "ASUS" or "MSI" on it and costs $1500 to $5000 doesn't mean it isn't crap. And I also have a bone to pick with reviewers too, who refuse to touch on said issues like thermal throttling or any such thing. Because while the public needs to improve their standards for people to get anywhere, people with voice in the industry need to make things more public.

[coldwell]

Getting back to the original question, I also really like the Skull Canyon for my needs (personal use: Photoshop mostly and then internet surfing, Netflix streaming etc.

My current laptop can't handle just doing PS (4 to 5 seconds lagging when doing anything) So I want something that can do PS and have multiple tabs open and stream music easily at the same time.

 

Also I have a 300 square foot studio and have no room for a desktop, so its this or a laptop. and for the price I can't find a laptop anywhere near this capable for under $1000 anyone know alternatives?

[Pendragon]

5 hours ago, coldwell said:

Also I have a 300 square foot studio and have no room for a desktop, so its this or a laptop. and for the price I can't find a laptop anywhere near this capable for under $1000 anyone know alternatives?

LOL. Plenty of laptops kill it in the specs department.

 

Dell 7559

Lenovo Y700

[coldwell]

Thanks for the info. but they are not killing it in the specs dept.....

When I go to Dell or Lenovo to configure those laptops to similar specs to the SC they are about $100-$200 more. (which isn't bad given their portability, but still more $)

They do have a graphics card but worse port selection (no thunderbolt and no type C) that I can see.

So for a non-gamer I don't think either makes a lot of sense especially at a higher cost.

 

I'd spend the extra money for these laptops if they had the above mentioned ports no problem. I'd rather have those than a graphics card.

I'd also prefer to stay under 14" in size.

I think I'm asking too much of a laptop at the price I want...hence the interest in the SC and then use my old 13" laptop for coffee shop work (non-PS work).

[coldwell]

On 9/11/2016 at 7:10 AM, D2ultima said:

Yup it's pretty bad. Especially since the $570 pricetag doesn't include things necessary to run (I believe it's missing RAM/storage/etc). You'd be far better off getting a decent laptop or something.

Sure a laptop may be better over all but they are a lot more expensive.....The Dell XPS 13 has everything as the SC but is 1800 on dell's US website....that's $800 more after configuring the SC with Win 10, 16gb ram and a 256gb ssd.....anyone know anything closer in price? with same or very close specs and ports?