ASRock Industrial's NUC1200 BOX Series Brings Alder Lake to UCFF Systems
by Ganesh T S on March 3, 2022 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Intel
- NUC
- UCFF
- ASRock Industrial
- Alder Lake-P
Intel recently updated their low-power processors lineup with the Alder Lake U and P Series 12th Gen Core mobile SKUs. With support for a range of TDPs up to 28W, these allow ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) PC manufacturers to update their traditional NUC clones. Similar to the Tiger Lake generation, ASRock Industrial is again at the forefront - launching the NUC1200 BOX Series within a few days of Intel's announcement.
The new NUC1200 BOX Series retains the chassis design and form-factor of the NUC1100 BOX Series. The NUC BOX-1165G7 left a favorable impression in our hands-on review, and the NUC1200 BOX Series seems to be carrying over all those aspects. The company is launching three models in this series - NUC BOX-1260P, NUC BOX-1240P, and NUC BOX-1220P. The specifications are summarized in the table below.
| ASRock Industrial NUC 1200 BOX (Alder Lake-P) Lineup | ||||
| Model | NUC BOX-1260P | NUC BOX-1240P | NUC BOX-1220P | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-1260P 4C + 8c / 16T (C) 2.1 - 4.7 GHz (c) 1.5 - 3.4 GHz 20 - 64W (28W) |
Intel Core i5-1240P 4C + 8c / 16T (C) 1.7 - 4.4 GHz (c) 1.2 - 3.3 GHz 20 - 64W (28W) |
Intel Core i3-1220P 2C + 8c / 12T (C) 1.5 - 4.4 GHz (c) 1.1 - 3.3 GHz 20 - 64W (28W) |
|
| GPU | Intel® Iris Xe Graphics (96EU) @ 1.4 GHz | Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics (80EU) @ 1.3 GHz | Intel® UHD Graphics for 12th Gen Intel® Processors (64EU) @ 1.1 GHz | |
| DRAM | Two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots Up to 64 GB of DDR4-3200 in dual-channel mode |
|||
| Motherboard | 4.02" x 4.09" UCFF | |||
| Storage | SSD | 1x M.2-22(42/60/80) (PCIe 4.0 x4 (CPU-direct)) | ||
| DFF | 1 × SATA III Port (for 2.5" drive) | |||
| Wireless | Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 2x2 802.11ax Wi-Fi (2.4Gbps) + Bluetooth 5.2 module |
|||
| Ethernet | 2 × 2.5GbE port (Intel I225-LM) | |||
| USB | Front | 1 × USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (USB4 Certification Pending) |
||
| Rear | 2 × USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A | |||
| Display Outputs | 1 × HDMI 2.0b 1 x DisplayPort 1.4a 2 × DisplayPort 1.4a (using Front Panel Type-C ports) |
|||
| Audio | 1 × 3.5mm audio jack (Realtek ALC233) | |||
| PSU | External (19V/90W) | |||
| Dimensions | Length: 117.5 mm Width: 110 mm Height: 47.85 mm |
|||
| MSRP | ? | ? | ? | |
According to the products' datasheet, ASRock Industrial plans to get the two Type-C ports in the front panel certified for USB4. Since the certification plan is still pending, they are being advertised as USB 3.2 Gen 2 for now. Going by our experience with the NUC-BOX1165G7, at least one of the front Type-C ports should be able to support Thunderbolt 4 peripherals.
The key updates over the NUC1100 BOX series seem to be the integration of dual 2.5GbE ports (compared to 1x 1GbE + 1x 2.5GbE), addition of 6GHz Wi-Fi support, and the presence of Alder Lake processors with their hybrid architecture comprising of both performance and efficiency cores.
Since the units target the embedded market also, they have the usual bells and whistles including an integrated watchdog timer and an on-board TPM. Pricing is slated to be announced in the coming months.
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Dug - Friday, March 11, 2022 - link
Bud, there's 6 usb ports in the back and 2 thunderbolt 4 (compatible with usb-c). There's no reason to unplug anything. If you are worried about dongle hanging out the front, then plug stuff in the back. But wtf would you have a phone charger, kindle charger, and earphone charger all plugged into your main entertainment machine if you are worried about appearance? Buy a simple 4 port charger to plug into the wall and get that crap away from your machine. There's usb-c and a and a sdxc card slot in the front. Why is it so hard to load photos? Or do the magical thing and do it wirelessly from another machine. You are making it harder than it needs to be. Start moving to nvme sense this has 3 hd slots and don't use an external hard drive which also adds to the clutter.dullard - Thursday, March 24, 2022 - link
Bud, those 6 ports in the back aren't all USB. Only 2 of the 6 ports are USB. And I just needed to wait 2 weeks for one with all that I ever wanted: https://www.asrockind.com/en-gb/iBOX-1245UEDug - Friday, March 11, 2022 - link
BTW what you just linked to doesn't have more ports than the Intel nuc, and in fact have less capability because the usb c does not equate to what tb4 can do. The zotac you linked to below has even less. Plus 10thgen, slow interface and interconnect, no ability to plug full size graphics card in, and only 1 nvme slot stuck at gen3 speeds, etc.dullard - Monday, March 28, 2022 - link
Did you even read what I posted? I said " I'll just wait a bit longer for an update to a product line like this". You see the word "update"? That was the update to 12th gen, with all the interfaces and interconnects I need. I certainly have no need for full size graphics card in a HTPC either.abufrejoval - Saturday, March 5, 2022 - link
The main issue with these NUCs has been getting them, especially the Ryzen variants, which were neigh impossible to obtain.With the Intels I got lucky, not only to get them, but also at decent prices. Still I wonder how far out these will be, afraid we won't see them in the wild before Q3.
Still I have some complaints like the Tiger Lake NUC11 would fail to work with both TB3 ports connected, evidently because of power drain. I tried to run both a Sabrent 10GBit NIC and an external NVMe drive and it would only ever see one of them.
2.5Gbit Ethernet is better than Gbit, but now that Marvell/Aquantia finally has a 10GBit/PCIe 4.0 x1 chip, I'd really like to see that in a NUC. Yes, it's almost 3 Watts but with a proper integration into the SoC cooling, that should be manageable.
Too bad Thunderbolt networking is too messy, because that's really the best fit for a small NUC cluster.
Dug - Friday, March 11, 2022 - link
This has 10GbE built in.Dug - Friday, March 11, 2022 - link
Never mind, wrong post, and can't editHideOut - Monday, March 7, 2022 - link
are those specs supposed to be 4P + 8E cores or what?Xajel - Tuesday, March 8, 2022 - link
See the spec. sheet again. the big C are the P cores, the small c are the E cores.So the i5 for example is 4C + 8c / 16T, thats 4P + 8E = 8T + 8T = 16 Hybrid Threads
lemurbutton - Tuesday, March 8, 2022 - link
Boring. Get a Mac Mini or Mac Studio.