Bleu Jour Fanless Industrial NUC with the Intel Core i7-1260P
This is the BleuJour META 12, a fanless industrial-style NUC. It also has the Intel Core i7-1260P onboard. The bottom half of the unit is an Intel NUC while the top is essentially a heatsink.
From the port configuration, the front will look very similar to the Intel NUC 12 Pro. The rear will as well, except that the two Thunderbolt ports are absent. Also, the WiFi antenna mounting is external, allowing for larger units. The Meta 12 also has a more industrial-style DC power input that can be secured via screws versus the less secure DC barrel jack (although that is present as well.)
The top of the unit is mostly just large heatsink fins to cool the CPU. The bottom has mounting holes. One piece of feedback is that it is harder to service inside this system because the bottom does not come off quickly and easily. Instead, many screws and chassis disassembly are required. If this is running a factory tool, for example, replacing or upgrading a SSD will take longer just due to the fact this does not have an easily accessible area like the Intel NUC and many other units we review.
Opening the chassis, we can see the two Crucial 8GB DDR4-3200 SODIMMs but this time a lower-power WD Blue SN570 1TB SSD. We are using the lower-speed SSD since it is lower power and generates less heat. The META 12 does not have a cooling solution for the SSD like the Intel NUC 12 Pro.
Here is the unit without drives and memory. It is very similar to the NUC 12 Pro that we saw earlier.
Instead of the fan assembly, there is a fairly large copper block to transfer heat from the CPU to the chassis. Taking a look to the top of the side-view, one can see just how much room is in the chassis above the memory and storage. This area can heat up since there is not a lot of cooling for these components. Even the newer AliExpress Intel Celeron J6413 Powered 6x i226 2.5GbE fanless firewalls have started to focus more on cooling other components outside of the CPU.
Still, the point of Intel sending us this platform was to highlight how its partners are using the Intel NUC for more than traditional desktops.
Next, let us get to the performance.
I’d say Intel needs to make a 50% bigger NUC just to add quieter cooling after listening to the video. That 115mm form factor isn’t cuttin’ it anymore. These are using more than twice the power of the old NUC.
Or add a big fan (would 120mm fit? Otherwise 92mm) to the fanless model and run it at very low speed. Should not be to hard to 3d print a adapter..
Small note, KC2500 is not PCI-e 4.0 but PCI-e 3.0.
‘We have a PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD (Kingston KC2500) installed […]” should be
‘We have a PCIe Gen3 NVMe SSD (Kingston KC2500) installed […]”. Gen4 is KC3000.
“We should also quickly point out that this is an Alder Lake machine, so these will be i225 B3 parts, not the newer C stepping i226 parts with lower BER and power consumption.”
I’ve seen reports of some fairly nasty teething issues with some of the Intel 2.5GbE parts(I think it was i225 prior to B3?)
Are we at the point where, while the i226 is an improvement, any i225 or 226 that shows up in a reasonably reputable context(NUC, known-brand motherboards and laptops, etc.) can be relied on to have a non-broken stepping; or are there still units floating around that need to be specifically checked for problem parts?
fuzz everything has been B3 or later for more than a year.
I would change one USB-C for another ethernet port.
After so many NUC generations a quiet machine under “moderate” load should be mandatory. Its quiet on no load. Thats all.
And you buy “pro” and an i7 because you need “some” horsepower. A rather-silent under load NUC would be a no brainer for me. But they are not. AMD “nucs” are worse.
IMHO, the problem with NUCs is most laptops have better value on purchase and afterwards. For a hundred or so euros you have a keyboard/mouse, a display and a UPS. Which is a huge difference (vostros, thinkbooks, some latitudes, some thinkpads)
As a server are all advantages, plus you might have the option of a GPU, usefull for some loads.
As a office-desktop machine as well. Maybe you save some space if its mounted rear a display…
Thank you Michael – I was recording a video with a different system with a Gen4 Kingston drive that day.
I have NUC2WSHv7 and i am finding vpro AMT *extremely* unreliable. Both display emulation and display clone works maybe 1 in 5 times. Awful. The problem is both with MeshCommander and with Intel Manageability Commander.
Anyone with same experience?
@KLMR
notebookcheck reviewed some minisforum devices. Noise is slightlc lower than a standard NUC PRO 1260P for most of them, especially under load.
the chicken infrastructure link is dead