Intel’s Compute Cards; Facing Future With These Super-Slim PC
Recently, Intel as officially revealed their Compute Cards at Computex 2017. It gives consumers the first look at the super-slim with fully functioning PCs. Along with a selection of different specs processors where they all come with 4GB of RAM and up to 128GB of onboard PCI Express, solid-state (SSD) storage.
Intel has already secured a number of partners in this project, where consumers can expect Compute Card enabled products to arrive before the end of the year. Intel's Compute Cards are designed as a spiritual successor to the Compute Stick to take microcomputing in a more powerful direction than the Raspberry Pi and its contemporaries.
Slim and entirely self-contained, Compute Cards will offer powerful, fully capable computing functions for modular systems. In the future, upgrading everyone's laptop or smart appliance could be as simple as removing the old card and plugging in the new.
According to Tech Radar, Compute Cards will offer quad core and dual core processors ranging from the sixth-gen Celeron N3450 and Pentium N4200 to the seventh-gen M3-7Y30 and i5-7Y57. These cards will be equipped with up to 3.3GHz with onboard Intel HD graphics; the chips consume no more than 4.5 watts of power, making them very efficient and capable of performing in such a small space without overheating.
As noted by The Verge, storage option includes a 64GB of eMMC flash storage with the older, Apollo Lake CPUs, while the more modern Kaby Lake options come with 128GB of PCIExpress SSD storage. Meanwhile, Compute Card is a little different from more traditional micro-PCs is in connectivity. These devices will have a standardized, bespoke connector which allows it to be used in a docking system for consumer usage and other devices in order to make easier connectivity for third-party manufacturers.
As for the speculated price for a stand-alone Compute Cards, it ranges from $150 for the low-end models, extending up to $500 for the more expensive options where Intel has set schedule for the release this August. Stay tuned for more updates.