Intel Severs NUC Lineup with Slew of Discontinuations

Intel
(Image credit: Intel)

On the heels of its decision to withdraw from the desktop and laptop PC business announced on July 11, Intel issued five product discontinuance notices regarding about a dozen NUC systems in just one month. While tens of Intel's own NUCs will be available for a while, several NUC models have now gone to end-of-life (EOL) status.

Most recently, Intel discontinued its NUC 12 Enthusiast kits and barebones systems with its Core i7-12700H processor and Arc A770M graphics. Intel also EOLed its NUC P14E Laptop Element notebook chassis meant to be integrated with NUC 11 Compute Element, and select NUC X15 Laptop Kits. The last product discontinuance shipment date for these items is September 8, 2023, so expect them to go extinct from retail by the end of the year or by early 2024.

In addition, Intel also issued product discontinuance notices for its NUC 11 v5 Compute Element and NUC 11 v7 Compute Element boards. The company will ship the final units of these SKUs on September 29, 2023.

Intel currently offers three categories of client NUC systems: consumer-focused compact PCs, business and enterprise-oriented machines with remote management capabilities, and high-end systems for gamers and professionals. While Intel's NUCs have been competitive against other PC brands, supporting a wide variety of desktops and laptops is challenging for Intel, whose main focus is lucrative chip manufacturing. As a result, the company decided to discontinue its PC business and pass the baton to its partners, such as Asus.

While Intel EOLed dozens of NUC offerings in just a few weeks, many NUC SKUs will remain available for quite a while. Furthermore, due to agreements with customers, the company will likely keep supplying its specialized versions of NUCs for some time.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • brandonjclark
    There's no shortage of reasonably-priced NUCs on Amazon right now.
    Reply
  • sjkpublic
    Anton is a busy beaver. Thank you for your articles. I suspect one reason Intel is exiting the NUC business is pricing and it competes with laptops. But then Intel has lost its edge.
    Reply
  • coolestcarl
    I'm not surprised. I baulked at the prices of Intel NUCs and when you compare what you get performance, energy efficiency, noise level wise and ecosystem wise, they generally make poor investments compared to the alternatives. Good riddance as far as the shareholders are concerned and the market share is so miniscule that it barely makes a ripple for the consumer choice.
    Reply
  • rluker5
    Maybe the opening line: "On the heels of its decision to withdraw from the desktop and laptop PC business" should read "On the heels of its decision to withdraw from the NUC business" for accuracy.

    Also this is the third article on this from Tom's. And while it does have some new specific information, NUC is just one of many lines of small form factor PCs made with intel CPUs.
    Reply