SPCR

Hey everyone, I purchased an Intel Nuc in late 2013 which has an Intel i5 4250U CPU. I placed the machine inside of a beautiful all alluminum Tranquil PC case. It's been working flawlessly for the past 6 years.

I think I'm going to need some more horsepower in the coming months and I was wondering if I could simply switch out the motherboard with cpu into my existing TranquilPC case? If that is the case, would you guys have a recommendation as to the NUC model that I should go with?


Thank you

Maybe... there is a chance that the mounting side dimensions changed slightly. IIRC, the heatsink on those covers the cpu and some vrms (and/or a northbridge?). If the vertical dimensions of your old and new board are the same, it'll be fine, but they could have done some odd things and changed them for some reason. Best to check with Tranquil PC to be sure.

What are your new requirements?

I think there are two different NUC chassis sizes. So, you'd want to make sure you pick the same. The chassis dimensions should be listed.

2nd: You've got a 15W CPU. Make sure what the limits of your case are to set the upper limit of what CPU you can pick.

3rd: You've got a 2 core 4 thread processor. You're biggest bump in performance would be to move upward in the number of cores.

I think I've found the datasheet for my NUC: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... 50wyk.html
It says the motherboard is form factor UCFF (4" x 4")

And here' the case: https://www.quietpc.com/tranquil-h22

Here's the NUC homepage.

Given your case's 4th gen compatibility listing, you probably need to stick with 15W CPUs.

TranquiPC got back to me and said that I wouldn't really be able to upgrade to anything with the case. wahwah.

So maybe a new SFF silent pc is in my future. What do you guys think of the OnLogic Helix? It currently offers the 10th gen Intel PCs while giving you the flexibility to be able to use a separate GPU with fans.

Haven't seen any reviews for Onlogic's cases. HDPlex is a known entity. I've referred lots of people to them. Cases for IGP builds as well as discrete GPU builds.

This could push you to a larger form factor/away from the mobile CPU performance limitations.

Have you figured out what you actually need in terms of CPU/GPU performance?

habusho wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 15, 2020 8:32 am

TranquiPC got back to me and said that I wouldn't really be able to upgrade to anything with the case. wahwah.

It can handle other 15W NUCs thermally, but the I/O ports (front and back) likely changed a bit over time, so I'm guessing that is why it won't work with different NUCs. But there are other passive NUC cases out there if you still want to go that route. This one seems like it can handle higher end NUCs, but really you should start with how much computing power you need and then choose a case/size, rather than the other way around.

heh. scan website wanted me to complete a captcha to look at a webpage. um...nope.