In this day and age, I am wondering whether the lowercase ‘i’ is intentional. 
Different doors have different capabilities. Not all doors are created equal.
IMO, the Intel homunculus CPU is a far bigger door than backdooring the Intel main CPU.
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no that’s intel’s TDP quote but the actual power consumption measured at the wall is far greater.
for all we have seen so far AMD’s Ryzen and Threadripper and EPYC lines are based on 7nm lithography at present and are much more power efficient than current intel lineup. 300w is not uncommon for a fully loaded 8c16t 5ghz intel monster.
but anyway we’re arguing past the point of the OP i believe …
what i fail to see the logic of is this … why choose an intel CPU that has an iGPU built in when you are going to almost certainly use the dedicated GPU MOST of the time ? i mean the power consumption at idle is not that great … my AMD WX is only a few watts more compared to the other APU system lying around …
just saying … from a power consumption stand-point only a mobile compute device (laptop or smartphone) requires that much preoccupation with power efficiency … the link that the OP posted is clearly NOT a mobile ANYTHING machine …
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True. With certain assumptions we could estimate that the peak power for that CPU is a little over 130W.
The spec says that the PSU is 330W, and the peak power consumption of the unit is quoted as 300W, so it is doubtful that this CPU in this box could have available to it 300W.
Because one of the applications for the box is some kind of display signage and they think someone might want 7 by 4K displays? I agree that most normal users could get away with using the integrated graphics (3 displays) or the dedicated graphics (4 displays) but not need both.
Another answer is that someone might want the CPU of the ‘Pro’ but not want the graphics of the ‘Pro’ and hence take out the graphics card (and redeploy it or sell it). Since maybe the user can’t change the CPU (soldered in) it is convenient to have integrated graphics already there. Even if not soldered in, it is still convenient. Or maybe the customer wants to use the graphics card as an auxiliary processor (AI / breaking hashes / encryption / whatever) but still be able to display something. Or maybe the graphics card dies and it’s convenient to be able to boot up and use the computer and find out what is wrong.
My current laptop has both. Always uses the graphics card for display but if I took out the graphics card, for whatever reason, the integrated graphics are there.
Not sure what you are getting at here. I think the intention of the post was to give an indication of a desired desktop (not mobile or portable) machine. Because it is fanless, it does require some preoccupation in the design regarding power consumption.
(This particular box is probably physically too big to be considered realistically portable but some others in the range are portable desktops.)
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They have been doing this for a number of years. I completely believe that it can handle 300W. They know what they are doing.
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the PSU is perfectly capable of handling that wattage but we were talking about the heat surplus because no fans are used. the system is designed to be compact and entirely passive … well i would keep an eye out for reviews and see how this goes …
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The whole point of their computers are desktop class components cooled passively. They have been around for a while, and there have been many reviews. So I don’t understand your worries.
I mean the company’s entire design is based on passively cooling desktop class components in small form factors. How would they still be around if it didn’t work? Furthermore, why would Mint be partnering up with them?
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While I agree with the spirit of your post, I think the point might be that there are no reviews of the Mintbox 3 range specifically because it has only just been released.
I would guess without checking that these two boxen have the highest amount of waste heat to dissipate of any model produced by Compulab so far i.e. passive cooling being pushed further than before.
But we are getting off topic.
The point being made originally was “hey, these ultra compact / small form factor fanless computers are cool, no pun intended, Purism should go in that direction if they decide to produce a desktop version” and I was more than happy to agree with that.
Would I buy one if they did? Unfortunately Purism just missed the upgrade cycle for my desktop and in any case it would depend on the spec.
One difficulty for Purism is that as a relatively small company they may not want to have too many models and variants but keeping everybody happy with one model is difficult. So I guess a question would be: how much extra would you pay for configure-to-order / build-to-order? - which is something that customers may expect more for a desktop than for a laptop.
Another question could be: would Purism consider a barebones model where the user chooses and installs RAM and/or disks?
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This is just the hardware with Mint on it. It is like getting a dell xps with Linux. Reviews have already been done and they are relevant as a result.
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I’m sorry for being mostly absent from the thread I started. The reason was my malfunctioning computer and a lot of work to do. Thanks for all the replies. Reading them has been interesting and enlightening.
Nowadays when I see how we are having less and less privacy in our lives, when I purchase my next computer, I just wouldn’t want to give my money to companies which are partly responsible for that narrowing of privacy. In short, I wouldn’t want to finance the destroyment of our privacy. As some already pointed out, it’s unavoidable that taking that into consideration when buying a new computer (or any other personal computing or communication device) is going to cost money. The more you turn away from the cheapest ways of producing things, the more you’ll pay. Some choices are so good, though, that paying more for them doesn’t feel bad (at least if I don’t have to give up anything essential for that like food or clothing).
I’m used to build my own computers. Sometimes I buy new components, sometimes used. I like the freedom and the optimized cost-performance-ratio I can achieve by doing so, and also the feeling that my PC is tailored to my needs – although in reality, my needs aren’t that narrowly defined (I don’t for example use my PC for work). I’m mentally prepared to give up building my own PCs in exchange to privacy, openness and a well-designed and well-tuned system. I may also have to give up some other of my expectations. What I’m not going to give up is that my next PC is going to run Linux (there probably aren’t any realistic free and open alternatives available), it’s going to be able to run graphically demanding software (for example at least three to five years old first rate 3D games with full quality settings), and it’s going to be silent. I’ll try to buy the most open hardware that I can achieve those requirements with. If I can get all that in a beautiful, (relatively) compact and high-quality case, and have a fully passive cooling, all the better. As I already brought up, I’m a sucker for nice design and high quality, so I’m ready to pay for those things too.
I think I see what you are getting at now. The actual hardware is the Airtop 3, which has been around for long enough (since last year) to have been reviewed?
Now I am intrigued. The block diagram appears to show ECC RAM supported, which I assume is for the Xeon CPU option (and not for the i9 CPU option). So you really could do a nifty silent home server with this hardware.
Turns out that the Quadro RTX 4000 is an option. But you had better be prepared to part with some serious coin.
urgh … 
for my GNU/Linux machine i will never EVER use a quadro … UNLESS they decide to lift this embargo crap on their drivers … AMD ain’t perfect but it sure beats nVidia’s imperialistic bullshit …
Yes I have the full Mintbox 3 pro as game rig with PopOS at the moment used Mint before it, PopOS has gamehub nice app to group all games I believe you can install it on PureOS. PopOS Nvidia ISO has a good build in tool for Nvidia you compared to few others PopOS was better.
This game rigs goes great with a UHD Samsung.
Regards, Alex
Nvidia are leaders for AI gpus cuda programing since I am in the field probably I prefer them over amd for gaming, for work Intel GPU over any other. My MBA degree givese mixed “feeling” about AMD orffer not to discuss in public forum. In short I trust Intel over Nvidia and AMD any dsy.
Any multinational corporation can be called imperialistic even Intel and RedHat or Google, and most of them are the biggest supporters to open source and Linux. Nvidia are was at odds with Linux I agree on that point.
Probably even my research company since be imperial, we have offices in North America, Middle East and Europe + Partners in Africa, South America + Asia.
Regards, Alex