A big thank you to Akasa for sending us their brand new case. Special thanks to Intel for sending over a Bean Canyon NUC, and for being a class act.
Right out of the box, the Turing is a sight to behold. There's something special about this chassis. It's both futuristic and Art Deco. It's also inspired by Asian design and culture. It's simply beautiful.
For some reasons, the case looks enormous in pictures. At only 95 x 113.5 x 247.9mm it's surprisingly small in person. It's definitely heavy though (2.5kg+) which is a good thing.
Impressed yet? The cooling fins are massive. In fact, the Turing is made of two giant cooling fin arrays. This design is disarmingly simple, yet devilishly effective.
The NUC motherboard is mounted using 4 pre-installed standoffs in the corners. Although cooling isn't affected (more on that later) we'd prefer to see the CPU area more tightly secured.
Assembly is very intuitive, but a step-by-step guide is also included.
The case comes with power and SATA cables, 2.5" mounting kit, four feet and two end covers (used when positioned horizontally).
The Turing comes with a perfectly fine and serviceable thermal paste, but feel free to use your favorite grease. We're partial to the Noctua NT-H1.
The NUC8i7BEH is so tiny and cute. Let's tear it apart!
The best thing about BGA processors is that no integrated heat spreader or TIM are involved. No deliding is needed to get to the shiny and reflective die (yes, this is the sky).
Inside the case, access to RAM slots and storage is unfettered. You may notice the holes previously used to mount the fan. They are now useless.
Although there's room for a 2.5" drive, we used an Intel 760P SSD. For speed and ease of use, M.2 storage is definitely the way to go.
The build was a breeze up until the power button, a crucial part of any PC if you ask us. We do love a good and responsive power button, and we were not impressed here. Our button isn't working when the front panel's screws are fastened firmly. Loosening the screws does solve the problem, but then the front panel is ever-so-slightly wobbly. Not a deal-breaker by any means, and it could be just our sample. Update: The problem was fixed by mounting the motherboard with the front panel in place.
Cooling is superb. Under heavy load, temperature rises to only 66°C. Please note that during our testing, better temps were always achieved in vertical position. The i7-8559U is a very impressive chip. Coming from an i7-4765T everything feels so much snappier. From 4K videos to Overwatch in 1080p, the 28W Coffee Lake processor handles just about everything we throw at it.
The Turing is a fantastic offering from Akasa. We were clamoring for a vertical case for what feels like forever. It's not entirely perfect but the Turing / Bean Canyon NUC combo is amazing as a Roon server, a Kodi HTPC, a Steam machine, or just as a unique (and totally silent) desktop PC.
