Our Porcoolpine sample arrived promptly, and carefully packaged. It was freshly assembled (February 2021) and shipped directly from the UK.
Frankly, we were not prepared for such a beauty. We're seriously impressed by the design, the CNC work, the attention to details, and well, the craftsmanship. The blue cooling fins are especially striking, and efficient (more on that later). This Porcoolpine is smooth and features no sharp edges whatsoever.
450 ml Dr Pepper bottle for scale. The whole system is barely larger than the stock Intel NUC although substantially heavier at around 2kg. Keep in mind that the aluminum chassis acts as a giant CPU cooler.
Simply NUC's Porcoolpine sytems are based on Intel's NUC 8 Pro (AKA Provo Canyon) and feature 15W Whiskey Lake processors with vPro enabled i5 and i7 options. The system also features a Thunderbolt 3 port and two full-sized HDMI 2.0a ports for up to three 4K displays at 60 Hz. Our humble i3-8145U was surprisingly snappy and plenty enough to handle our office work and occasional HTPC duties.
Multiple storage options. Our unit came with 8GB RAM, a 128GB M.2 SSD and a 1TB HDD. The diminutive systems are fully configurable with up to 64GB and and a mind-blowing 16TB of SSD storage.
Access to internal components is a child's play and assembly requires only four screws. A COM port is added for more commercial / industrial applications.
The systems comes with a VESA mount, the 90W FSP090-DBBN3 power adapter, a regional power cord, two WiFi antennas, and a quick start guide.
Thermals are excellent. Our i3-8145U was kept around 45°C during most of our testing, reaching the low 70°C under extreme load. It just works, and in total silence. Stylish, customizable, and powerful: Simply NUC's Porcoolpine is simply one of the best fanless NUC out there. Highly recommended.
