With 1280 CUDA Cores and 5GB of dedicated VRAM, the Quadro P2200 has the power to drive up to four 5K displays and offers real rendering muscle for pros.
With the workstation-grade Nvidia Quadro P2200 graphics card inside, the NUC 9 Pro is outfitted with some serious firepower for professional users doing everything from complex financial modeling to engineering and design. Intel NUC 9 Pro (Quartz Canyon) review: Graphics
The Intel NUC 9 Pro produced a blistering 849 points, beating out both the Mac mini (566) and the Lenovo M90n Nano (390). To get another real-world measure of the system capabilities, we use PugetBench's scripted Photoshop test, which chews through a number of resource intensive tasks and produces a final score. That said, other mini PCs that offer workstation-grade performance have done better – the Asus ProArt PA90 did the same task in 5 minutes 48 seconds. The Mac mini was just a hair faster (8:11) when using the Apple-optimized version of the test (and only 12:38 when running the standard version via Rosetta 2), but both were well ahead of the Lenovo ThinkCentre M90n (20:23). The Intel NUC 9 Pro offered speedy results, completing the test in 8 minutes 23 seconds. In Geekbench 5.0, the Intel NUC 9 Pro had a category-leading score of 7,985, easily outpacing the likes of the new Apple Mac mini with the M1 processor, which scored 6,005 points, and blowing the doors off of low-powered mini PCs like the Lenovo ThinkCentre M90N Nano, which managed 3,265 with an Intel Core i5-8365U processor.įor a more real-world example of performance, we also ran the NUC 9 Pro through our Handbrake test, testing how quickly a system can transcode a 4K video clip to 1080p.
If you need to design a bridge, or a new hip replacement joint, or need to edit lots of high-resolution video, this is the sort of tiny PC you'll want. Paired with Nvidia Quadro P2200 graphics, that puts the NUC 9 Pro firmly in the workstation category, packing the sort of power you might need for engineering and other professional 3D applications. Our unit is outfitted with an Intel Xeon E-2286M processor, a potent 8-core CPU capable of handling 16 discrete processing threads. Intel NUC 9 Pro (Quartz Canyon) review: Performance
The Compute Element runs with a TDP of 95 watts, and is even available as a standalone unit separate from the NUC housing. With the Intel Compute Element available with processors ranging from a Core i5 up to the Xeon we see in our own test unit, the NUC 9 Pro offers a huge range of power. There's no data transfer between the two, but it provides an independent full-powered PC small enough to slot into another desktop tower. The modular design of the Compute Element means it can even be slotted into a separate PC, connecting with a PCIe slot on an existing motherboard. On the front is also an SD card slot and a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack. A total of 6 USB 3.1 Gen 2 slots offer plenty of connectivity for peripherals, as well as two Thunderbolt 3 connectors and two USB 2.0 ports. On the front and back of the NUC 9 Pro you'll find a good number of ports. Intel NUC 9 Pro (Quartz Canyon) review: Ports If you're more interested in owning a tiny but powerful PC than building one, this is definitely the better way to go. That said, the Intel NUC 9 Pro case is really only suitable to the NUC, and it would take a dedicated enthusiast builder to assemble the same components in such a compact case. The result is a potent workstation class desktop crammed into 4.92 liters of physical space, offering more power per cubic inch than any other desktop we've seen.
The Intel NUC 9 Pro seems less like Intel's take on the Apple Mac mini – which is what defined many of the early NUC designs – and instead looks like an attempt to wed the NUC concept with the most extreme small form factor systems.