The slimest fanless NUC case

The Akasa Plato is a premium, low-profile fanless chassis designed to transform an Intel NUC into a completely silent, passively cooled workstation. Built from high-quality brushed aluminum, the case acts as a massive heat sink that efficiently dissipates heat without the need for noisy fans. Its slim design, measuring 39mm in height, features a stylish front panel that fits into professional or home theater environments. It's also VESA mountable, allowing you to hide the entire system behind a monitor for a clean, cable-free desk setup. Current model, the Plato RC (A-NUC106-M1B) is compatible with both the NUC 14 Pro and NUC 15 Pro.

Discover the SBC world

This impressive collection of single-board computers belongs to our friend Bret who just launched sbc.compare a specialized comparison and database tool for SBCs, such as the Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi, and Rockchip-based boards. It allows users to filter, search, and compare hundreds of different boards based on technical specifications. Perfect for hobbyists and engineers looking to find the best hardware for projects like home servers, media centers, or industrial IoT applications.

Ryzen ThinkCentre IoT review

Courtesy of ETA PRIME

The NUC 16 Pro is a gaming PC

With the NUC 16 Pro, the dream of a fanless gaming mini PC is finally within reach. Recently unveiled at CES 2026, the Core Ultra X9 388H model featuring the new Intel Arc B390 integrated graphics is a beast. This Xe3-based iGPU delivers a massive leap in performance, reportedly doubling the frame rates of previous generations and rivaling discrete entry-level cards by hitting over 80 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p high settings. Passive cooling remains a significant challenge, as most fanless NUC chassis are rated for a 40W TDP, whereas the Core Ultra X9 388H can surge to 65W, and even 80W under heavy loads. 

Source: Digital Foundry via TechPowerUp and Tom's Hardware

A sad story

The e-waste gods smile on me once again, with two of these Advantech MIC-770 V2s, each with a 10900K and 64Gb of DDR4. They won't power on, but my guess is the power board is bunk. pic.twitter.com/GzwcekA6io

— Procyon (@Procyon86) January 7, 2026

Freshly repasted, fully reassembled, and ready for more testing. Shame I don't have any extra nvme drives laying around. pic.twitter.com/2yJHYSyl8w

— Procyon (@Procyon86) January 10, 2026

Fuck it. Un-fanlesses ur pc. pic.twitter.com/mi2OtyuSid

— Procyon (@Procyon86) January 11, 2026

DDR5 ZBOX announced

The ZOTAC ZBOX CI360 is an upgraded version of the N150-powered ZBOX CI338, announced at CES 2025 and never released. This new iteration supports up to 16GB of DDR5-4800 RAM and now features four USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, for speeds up to 10 Gbps. This particular fanless honeycomb design (launched in 2014) is not particularly good, and is feeling pretty dated by now. It’s definitely time for a total redesign, ZOTAC.

Source: ZOTAC

NUC 16 Pro launch video

Courtesy of ASUS

The NUC 16 Pro is here

The ASUS NUC 16 Pro is here and it's surprisingly larger than previous generations. Powered by Intel's new Panther Lake CPUs up to the flagship 16-core Ultra X9 388H, featuring Intel's most powerful iGPU (Arc B390 with 12 Xe3 cores) the 144 x 117 x 42 mm powerhouse makes room for a second SSD slot and a second 2.5G Ethernet port. You're gonna need a bigger fanless case.

Source: Wccftech 

Intel Panther Lake launched

Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors, unveiled at CES 2026, represent the first compute platform built on the advanced Intel 18A process. Codenamed "Panther Lake" this new lineup also features the brand-new Xe3 graphics. The flagship SKUs, including the new Core Ultra 9 and 7 classes, offer up to 16 CPU cores, 12 Xe-cores, and an NPU delivering 50 TOPS for local AI tasks. Beyond consumer products, Series 3 is the first to be certified for industrial edge use cases like robotics, smart cities, and healthcare automation. We strongly believe that Panther Lake will power the NUC 16 Pro, and high-performance fanless PCs in 2026.

Source: Intel

MeLE Cyber X1 as telescope controller

Courtesy of Deep Space Astro