Intel is shutting down NUC

[[erm]]

Hello people.

I really don’t want to lock this thread and make it appear that Ableton is shutting down conversations about this topic. But please, let’s stop with the personal attacks and such or else I’m going to have to lock the thread.

Unless of course Intel shuts down the production of my ability to lock threads.

[Pierre Karine]

for the virtue of forums

[funkazoid]

Hi There.

Where in my view it gets slippery is that Ableton is positioning push 3 as upgradable. If you buy the controller you can make it standalone by a 'to be launched' upgrade kit and there is even mentioning you can upgrade the standalone version with a stronger processor. There is tension between that promise versus the announcement that came out from Intel. As such I understand some of the concerns here being raised and that Ableton should provide some clarity on this matter.

When I read the Intel announcement I read it as we will stop making mini pc's based on the NUC form factor. I'm not reading that the form factor itself will disappear. Has anyone come across statements that the NUC form factor will disappear?

Thx
Jay

[hellnegative_]

Hi There.

Where in my view it gets slippery is that Ableton is positioning push 3 as upgradable. If you buy the controller you can make it standalone by a 'to be launched' upgrade kit and there is even mentioning you can upgrade the standalone version with a stronger processor. There is tension between that promise versus the announcement that came out from Intel. As such I understand some of the concerns here being raised and that Ableton should provide some clarity on this matter.

When I read the Intel announcement I read it as we will stop making mini pc's based on the NUC form factor. I'm not reading that the form factor itself will disappear. Has anyone come across statements that the NUC form factor will disappear?

Thx
Jay

Intel has stated specifically that it will stop manufacturing Intel NUC devices, but will still allow third party developers to continue to manufacture NUC devices.

The NUC Compute Element will remain a licensable platform. Ableton will either need to look for a third party to purchase from or license and develop their own. Either way, I don’t see Ableton stringing out its users before the product reaches EOL.

[funkazoid]

Exactly,

There is no announcement that the form factor is going away.

My understanding is that the current Push3 standalone is based on the NUC11's which have already been announced EOL.

I do believe Ableton needs to inform it's current customers that are using Push3 based on the NUC11 what level of support they can or can't expect.

Jay

[login]

Since it is already a generation 11 platform I would think that they already had orders to be delivered, they are manufacturing and shipping Push 3 stand alone right now, so they have the parts now.

[timerickson]

When I read the Intel announcement I read it as we will stop making mini pc's based on the NUC form factor. I'm not reading that the form factor itself will disappear. Has anyone come across statements that the NUC form factor will disappear?

Intel is closing down their entire NUC business unit. NUC is not a single form factor but an entire category and brand. The most popular are their 4x4 computers and boards, but they had both smaller and larger products under the NUC brand name. The smallest (I think?) of these NUC products was the NUC Compute Element, which is the product used by Ableton for the P3S. It is a very small board, smaller than their 4x4 products, with soldered CPU, RAM, PCH, and a 300-pin connector that provides power, and connection to peripherals like networking, USB, etc. It's marketed for digital signage, but Ableton saw the utility and small size of it for Push 3.

The consternation shown in this thread is that that the only news thus far has been "NUC is ending" and then "Asus is taking over NUC", but both of these press releases leave a lot undefined regarding the future of the wide array of NUC products being developed. We can safely assume support promises will be kept for the existing made products, but there's no certainty that Compute Elements will be made for future Intel generations, or even if manufacturing will continue.

The Compute Elements currently exist in 8th, 11th, 12th, 13th gen models. Assuming production continues for at least either 12th or 13th gen, Ableton can offer upgrades from the currently shipping 11th gen models. 12th gen was the first to switch to 10nm process node (down from 14nm), meaning there are no thermal constraints in the design of the Push 3. (Smaller node = less heat)

Again assuming production continues and Ableton can buy stock, that's two generations of upgrades they can sell, even if no future Compute Elements are designed.

[funkazoid]

Thank you for this broad answer to this whole NUC issue and putting into perspective! Really helpful.

[dustyatx]

Amazing to see the wild speculation by people who clearly have absolutely no understanding how hardware manufacturing works. Seriously you need to ignore just about everything that was written in this thread.. It's all completely made up in people's heads and not how things work at all in the real world at all.

I just finished negotiating a deal to get Tensor SOC (also licensed to ASUS) integrated into a major wireless camera company's premium product line.

Guess it's not common knowledge, but it starts and ends with contracts.. Every lawyer knows to put provisions in to the contract that secures supply across multiple years, that's duration is generally a point of negotiation. That commitment is often the difference between a deal and no-deal being made.

Downstream manufacturers always want a commitment that the component will be available year after year.. Not only that but everyone involved knows this as well, it's a part of the supplier selection process. Just so happens that every company in the world knows this and this is standard operating procedure regardless of the industry.

[dcjams]

Amazing to see the wild speculation by people who clearly have absolutely no understanding how hardware manufacturing works. Seriously you need to ignore just about everything that was written in this thread.. It's all completely made up in people's heads and not how things work at all in the real world at all.

I just finished negotiating a deal to get Tensor SOC (also licensed to ASUS) integrated into a major wireless camera company's premium product line.

Guess it's not common knowledge, but it starts and ends with contracts.. Every lawyer knows to put provisions in to the contract that secures supply across multiple years, that's duration is generally a point of negotiation. That commitment is often the difference between a deal and no-deal being made.

Downstream manufacturers always want a commitment that the component will be available year after year.. Not only that but everyone involved knows this as well, it's a part of the supplier selection process. Just so happens that every company in the world knows this and this is standard operating procedure regardless of the industry.

Right.

I was going to attempt to bring a hardware product to market (did it in software in the end) and even just reading the first two books on product development and manufacturing that Amazon spat out was a total eye-opener.

It's a really interesting area and full of lots of counter intuitive "ah-ha!" moments and "oh yeah, I knew shit about that."

[rg01A]

https://www.anandtech.com/show/20040/as ... -nuc-brand

Looks like all will be fine!

[jlgrimes]

I will say also that after using Push 3 in standalone version this weekend, I haven't had much issues with CPU overload after working on songs from a practical standpoint.

It seems that Ableton engineered most of their synths to be CPU light anyways, so I don't think CPU upgrades will be that much of an issue at least until they start getting deeper into M4L.

[subnoize]

Amazing to see the wild speculation by people who clearly have absolutely no understanding how hardware manufacturing works. Seriously you need to ignore just about everything that was written in this thread.. It's all completely made up in people's heads and not how things work at all in the real world at all.

As a software and hardware provider who actually uses NUCs and various Intel product lines I have supremely enjoyed watching people freak over a non-issue.

You can't reason with any of these people so I just laugh at them.

You can chant all day "it's the chip, not the solder job" and nobody is going to hear you.

What it really is is buyer remorse. After a big spend people will find and fixate in things to justify their guilt for the purchase.

I know I won't be the last word on this topic but hopefully one person might find comfort in this;

The PCB the chip is soldered to is completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Intel did not cancel the i3, they cancelled development on a line of integration modules.

Besides, I have a Push 3 and I checked the pins connecting the module to the Push 3. Turns out they are in fact USB 3 and power. Just like on any PC or Mac. There are a few pins I can't tell exactly what they are for but I can promise you now that they can stick any single board computer on that bus and it would be capable of running the Push 3.

Am I the only person who was curious enough to open the thing and see for themselves?

[dcjams]

Amazing to see the wild speculation by people who clearly have absolutely no understanding how hardware manufacturing works. Seriously you need to ignore just about everything that was written in this thread.. It's all completely made up in people's heads and not how things work at all in the real world at all.

As a software and hardware provider who actually uses NUCs and various Intel product lines I have supremely enjoyed watching people freak over a non-issue.

You can't reason with any of these people so I just laugh at them.

Always good to hear from people who actually know what they're talking about

Will ASUS continue to manufacture a drop in replacement by default or will Ableton need to have a conversation with them?

[elbows]

Always good to hear from people who actually know what they're talking about

Will ASUS continue to manufacture a drop in replacement by default or will Ableton need to have a conversation with them?

Very recently ASUS got their glossy marketing up and running for this line of products, and the type of device that the Push 3 uses, a 'Compute Element' package, is one of the product lines they are continuing. So the form factor that matters for the Push 3 continues to be available = the best news we could reasonably expect at this stage.

So far the glossy marketing only highlights the 13th gen Compute Element, which is newer than the one the Push 3 used at launch. ASUS may well still offer the older ones too, and just havent highlighted them in their marketing material so far, but this would need to be confirmed.

So for now the situation is prettty much the same as it was under Intel, in that plenty of people will suppose that the newer generations of the Compute Element modules will work on the Push 3 and offer us an upgrade path. But until Ableton confirm that, or someone tries to see if it will even work already, this assumption is not quite fully 100% safe.

Looking ahead to the much longer term, we'll need to see whether when it comes to subsequent generations of CPU etc that dont exist yet, ASUS end up designing their own Compute Element modules that are drop-in compatible with those designed under Intel in the past.