Intel actually demonstrated at this year's Computex 2019 eventA modular design called NUC Compute Element, allowing hardware manufacturers to quickly create laptop products with this modular design.Earlier at an event in London, EnglandIntel also showcased another modular design in the form of a dual-slot PCIe card, allowing manufacturers to quickly create desktop products that meet different usage needs.
In this Intel design, the CPU, memory, storage components and other designs used in traditional PCs are mainly integrated into a PCIe card that occupies a dual-slot space. The card also provides an RJ-45 wired network port, a Thunderbolt 3 port, a USB port, and a Wi-Fi connection design.
The version of the design Intel showcased this time uses a Xeon processor in a BGA package, and is driven by an 3.0-Pin external power supply through a PCIe 16 x8 slot. It can also install two sets of M.2 storage components and two sets of LPDDR2 memory. At the same time, a full-cover heat dissipation module ensures stable system operation.
This PC built in the form of a PCIe card can be used with other graphics cards and accelerator cards that are also built in the form of PCIe cards. At the same time, its own operating power is up to 75W. If an 8-Pin external power supply is added, the power supply can reach up to 150W, which means that it can operate at a maximum power of 225W, which is almost in line with general PC usage needs.
According to Intel, this design will revolutionize traditional PC design and change previous computing deployment models. For example, a single PCIe card can become a PC cluster, meaning that by installing multiple cards, multiple computing clusters can be formed, allowing for applications such as AI acceleration and FPGA-based computing.
However, this design is currently in the conceptual design stage and has not yet entered the market application plan.
