I think the influx of very low cost Chinese mini PCs makes the NUC, Asus PN and Asrock devices a bit less attractive. Also thelow power AMD APU has been very good for the form factor. Maybe the margins are too tight for Intel. Another take maybe that the NUC came in when low power Arm desktops looked viable and Intel needed a low power small form factor to defend against that.
The Minisforum, Beelink and the generic aliexpress units are incredibly cheap.
There are celeron based fanless models with 4 2.5gbe NICs available for less than $200 on Amazon.
Personally I have been using the AMD 15w Ryzen variants it’s a nice balance for performance. I have several, my daily driver is an Asus PN50 with 2Tb nvme disk and 64GB ram driving 3 sceeens at 2560x1440 in a completely silent Akasa case.
As long as you are prepared to fiddle and potentially destroy the original case rhe Akasa cases are fantastic.
The Minisforum, Beelink and the generic aliexpress units are incredibly cheap.
There are celeron based fanless models with 4 2.5gbe NICs available for less than $200 on Amazon.
Personally I have been using the AMD 15w Ryzen variants it’s a nice balance for performance. I have several, my daily driver is an Asus PN50 with 2Tb nvme disk and 64GB ram driving 3 sceeens at 2560x1440 in a completely silent Akasa case.
As long as you are prepared to fiddle and potentially destroy the original case rhe Akasa cases are fantastic.