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Intel NUC X15 i7-12700H, A730M 12GB, 15.6" FHD IPS 144Hz Laptop Kit $679.15 ($663.17 eBay+) Delivered @ Computer Alliance eBay

1010
MAYP15MAYP17

Great price for the Intel NUC X15 barebones laptop kit.

Note: This is a barebones laptop and you will need to supply your own RAM, SSD and OS.

Specs:

  • CPU: Intel Core i7 12700H | 14 Cores (24M Cache, up to 4.7GHz)
  • Screen Size: 15.6" FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS-Level 144Hz
  • GPU: Intel Arc A730M 12GB
  • RAM: 2x DDR5 SO-DIMM Slots, 4800Mhz
  • SSD: 2x M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe SSD Slots, 1x Gen 4 + 1x Gen 3 or SATA
  • Ethernet Port: 1x RJ45
  • Wireless Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) + Bluetooth 5.2
  • Display Outputs: 1 x HDMI 2.1
  • Thunderbolt: 1 x Thunderbolt 4 Through USB-C
  • USB: 3 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A | 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C with Thunderbolt
  • Camera: HD IR with Windows Hello Support
  • Audio Outputs: 1 x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack
  • Other: No Card Reader | No Optical Drive
  • Operating System: No Operating System
  • Dimensions: 358.3mm x 235mm x 22.2mm
  • Weight: 2.2kg
  • Battery: 62Whr (4100mAh) with Fast Charge Support
  • Colour: Black anodised aluminium chassis
  • Warranty: 2 Years

Original Coupon Deal

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closed Comments

  • +2

    Apparently doesn't support power delivery over usb-c

    • +4

      same for a lot of gaming laptops, not enough juice for GPU

      • +9

        USB PD now goes up to 240w, which is plenty.

        However even oldschool 100W charging would be great for office work/light gaming on the iGPU.

        Swap to the brick for dGPU gaming.

        It's a HUGE convenience improvement.

        • its a relatively old design, and i expect higher cost components are needed in the laptop to support charging at that power rate
          easier/cheaper to just use a barrel jack

          • +3

            @Lonewolf1983: Oh yeah definitely cheaper. Was just saying it didn't support charging, as that's a requirement for me, so figured it may be useful info for others as it can be often hard to find.

    • +15

      its a nuc kit, like the desktops
      Add in memory and SSD of your choice and good to go

    • +6

      If the laptop is good, you can choose your own RAM and its frequency and an SSD thats TLC or SLC or QLC and whatever size you want. Better that way. If only i could add my own GPU and upgrade it later lol.

      • +1

        I think you could upgrade the GPU with a Thunderbolt eGPU. It would probably cost more than is worth though.

    • +7

      It's great - you don't need to pay the Microsoft tax if you're installing Linux.

      • +3

        Yes. Also while windows users may consider Intel GPU to be a disadvantage, the dedicated Intel ARC is decent and better supported by Linux than than Nvidia. Linux also has good support for this hardware: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Intel_NUC_X15

        Also missing the ram isn't so bad if you were planning to throw out the ram and forking out $300+ on 64GB of RAM so you could fire up a stupid number of docker containers :P

        • +1

          Can it go up to 64GB RAM? Can it run a single stick of 32GB RAM?

          • @Stingo: Huh, apparently some x15 can and some can't. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000… but https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000…

            I imagine you could put a single 32GB stick in there. But why would you want to buy a new i7 and then run it on single channel ram?

            • @gmatht:

              Huh, apparently some x15 can and some can't.

              Even if Intel were clearer the seller doesn't identify the variant. Don't know whether Intel is like Lenovo who think Australians don't want the option of better screens.

              But why would you want to buy a new i7 and then run it on single channel ram?

              Just being cheap and not having a good feel about how much performance would be lost. Performance isn't my primary concern in any case.

    • Better than paying a premium price for bucket-tier memory and storage that you'll just swap out anyway.

  • +11

    So approximately 900 including SSD and 32GB RAM. Not bad IMO.

  • +2

    what is the weight and battery size

    • +7

      2.2kg and 63wh or so?

      About 5.5 hours on the notebookcheck wifi test. Reasonable but not great. Would get about 15 seconds of gaming however haha.

      • 15 mins?

        • +4

          Hyperbole.

          • @incipient: You switched too fast from being a super scietific guy to a joker. Who would have known ;)

            • +6

              @[Deactivated]: Haha what's the expression? Move fast and break things? I definitely broke context 😅

              But yeah you're actually probably right. 250w power draw at Max load, on a 63wh battery, is probably 15mins!

  • +3

    I've never seen a barebones laptop before. Interesting. At least it solves the soldered RAM slot problem that pops up here all the time.

    I have a NUC mini pc which was barebones. That was fun. Not really but easy.

    Actually it's not barebones enough for me. If I bought it it would always be plugged in with the battery removed.

  • Is that a dedicated GPU

    • +1

      yeah but its intel ARC, great for some things but gaming can be iffy depending on title

      • A730 and with 12gb vram, good enough to play AAA titles?

        • +1

          Hard to find real world examples, but will depend on title
          Some are bad on arc some are ok
          Roughly 3060 mobile equivalent

  • Is this a pricing error? It seems to be far cheaper than other sellers, unless I'm missing something. I only did a very quick look at prices.

  • Oof, wonder if arc can deal with 3d modelling/scanning these days or not…

    • What scanner you using? I was under the impression the affordable scanners were still ages away from being an easy 1 step solution (ie not have to stuff around with cleaning up meshes etc)

      • +1

        The current generation is great for creating a reference, not for scan and print to clone things.

        I have a revopoint range 1, it's not amazing but very useful. Best thing is you can scan using your phone then mesh on PC, great for workflow. But considering an einstar which requires a pretty beefy pc

  • At this price with 2.5GbE, 2xSODIMM and 2xNVMe I feel like this could be used as a homelab server. i.e. a potential alternative to the mini PC's out there, and a built in UPS

    Any ideas about isle power consumption?

  • +2

    that's some fat VRAM for this price and GPU class.

  • -2

    It is 2024!!!!!!! …the amount of RAM this comes with is a joke!

    • +1

      Yep. My VIC20 has more.

    • +2

      12GB is VRAM not RAM. You need to provide your own RAM

    • +3

      Yeah, imagine selling a laptop with no RAM at all.

  • I'd rather crap gfx but with USB charging and video out

  • damn, if this used ddr4 sodimm

    i would snap it up

    got plenty of 8gb sodimms…
    but uses ddr5 :(

    • cant you just use ddr4 ? isn't it backwards compatible?

  • Ooooh, how is the A730M nowadays?
    I'm sure I got some spare ssd and sodimms lying around

    • +1

      It needs ddr5 ram. Don't think people have those sticks lying around….

      • Ah shit, you're right.

    • +1

      was my thoughts exactly..

      till i spotted ddr5

  • How much is Windows these days?

    • +3

      $20 for a third party license on amazon (tried and it works) or $249 from the official australia microsoft website. Technically can use it without a license.

      • +1

        It’s basically freeware nowadays in the same way that WinRar is

  • +2

    Anyone have one? Running Linux? Is this screen bright enough for outdoor use? Does it have decent build quality? Would like something that can have it's memory expanded above 32GB with a bright screen, decent build quality and something that can stop charging below 100% to maximise battery longetitivity or have a removable battery. Don't care hugely about performance as it would largely be light use under Qubes, would prefer more battery life for occasional outdoor use. I do want a 15.6" screen or better, pref 16:10 or even taller. Of course, I'd like it for a price that is not many times this one. Is this the best I can do? I could live with a refurb with an easily replaceable battery.

    • +1

      I have a different 14 inch intel NUC laptop. It runs linux well, I swapped off windows immediately for better battery life and performance, was not disappointed. My screen is different from this model, it has decent build quality. It also has good battery management, it often doesn't bother charging it back up to 100% if i'm only draining 10-15% at a time. if it does charge up to 100% and i use it off the wall power for days it slowly drains off 100%. I've been using the laptop for over 2 years, still at 98-100% battery health (it sometimes goes back to 100% after a restart and stays there for months), still get full capacity out of it.

      It was my understanding that intel saw the threat to it's laptop market share because company were flooding the market with shit laptops, so developed a bunch of frameworks for third parties to use.

      I would happily buy another intel laptop, just waiting for one with an oled screen.

      • Thanks for answering my questions. Much appreciated.

        • +1

          I did some more research into this specific laptop as i'm interested in low power hardware. seems this one has some decent teething issues with linux which is a bit of a shame. Mainly i think the a730m still needs work. from everything i've seen the arc GPUs have come really far with their drivers but i guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that low power consumption and linux support has taken a back seat to reliable game performance across the board. If you don't need the arc performance their iris based integrated graphics is still quiet powerful on the version i have. I also really like being able to power it from the USBc port on either side, apart from redundancy sometimes it just makes a huge difference in your work space being able to pick what side your power, display and usb hub come from. It is in my top 5 underrated laptop features for sure.

  • Be interested to know if the screen is glossy or matte!

  • Does this have HW AV1 encode/decode?

    • Through the dGPU, yes.

    • Yes, Arc was one of the first to support AV1

  • $699 on their website, not really saving much.

    • I had access to 4% off eBay gift cards and hopefully Shopback 1.3% will track too.
      Not much, but every dollar counts - inflation is inflicting a lot of pain on the wallet

  • Could someone tell me if this laptop can handle three seperate monitors 4k @60hz without the use of a dock?

    • There are physically not enough ports, so you need some sort of "dock" to output 2 4k signals from the thunderbolt 4 port.

  • Out of stock

  • RAM speed support is limited to DDR5-4800

  • I want a restock 😭
    Genuinely gutted.
    For the price to get dedicated gpu and 32gb ram nothing would come close

    • This one doesn't come with SODIMM RAM. BYO

      • I know but $900ish with ram nvme vs 2k+

        • On eBay there are Samsung 16GB DDR5-5600 SODIMM modules going for about $41 after coupons. Seems incredibly cheap to combine with this

          • @CoronavirusVaccine: Referring to this one? For DDR5 16gig, its almost 50% cheaper than anything you can get at Umart Im seeing

            https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/266709397451?itmmeta=01HZ441NAHX…

            • +1

              @dbmitch: yep, ordered one, arrived next day.

              • @CoronavirusVaccine: Can these run 5600?

                Isnt it recommended to run 2 sticks instead on 1?

                • @Robbo014: no the BIOS is locked to 4800. but I'd usually prefer to get the faster RAM (conditional on negligible price differential) because RAM gets used over a long time (10+ years) before the next DDR generation takes over. So there's a good chance that during its life time there would be some new machine in the house that could take advantage of faster speed. it's still early days for DDR5 - it can still get a lot faster. than 5600

                  yes 2 sticks would be ideal.

                  2 sticks is critical if using the iGPU but since it has a dGPU my use case isn't crucial to have just one stick. could always add another one later.

        • Barebones are great. Always annoyed when laptop/mini PC's come with small RAM/NVMe than required. Swap them is easy enough but the hassle to resell them is a PITA

      • I appreciate the consolation though!

        • I hope their stock level control is good. I am gonna be so screwed if they can't fulfill the order

        • Seems to be back in stock now

  • +2

    Was pretty tempted to buy this to replace my i7 7700HQ + GTX 1050 laptop… but the reviews seem pretty shit if any at all.

    • Would have been a pretty significant upgrade

  • +5

    I had one of these, ended up no longer working on battery at all so I returned it for a refund around a month ago, got it in January I think, battery MAYBE had 2 cycles on it.

    XMP does not work correctly, causes fan speeds to go haywire, seemed more so caused by the NUC software, couldn't find a workaround. You want to use the NUC software so you can use the higher GPU power limit.

    CPU Power limits set in BIOS don't work correctly or are overridden by the NUC software/EC.

    No undervolting, locked BIOS.

    Intel never released a VBIOS update for this, VBIOS updates are kind of important with ARC, you can partially flash it with the tool on techpowerup (at your own risk).

    The display in my unit was GSYNC only so no variable refresh rate, was able to use CRU to add FreeSync no problem.

    Had issues with the ARC GPU not going to sleep and constantly drawing 18-30W or thereabouts. It would also keep the ARC GPU active watching YouTube on battery with all power saving modes enabled (no external monitor).

    "buggy and weird" would be my summary, fantastic value though, plays Helldivers 2 good.

    Battery life was not good BUT I can't tell you a number, I used mine constantly plugged in (NUC software allows you to limit battery charge, I went with 50%).

    Factory Wi-Fi was a CNVI type, swapping to an AX210 or BE200 PCIe type worked no problem.

    As others have said, no charging with USB-C.

    Pretty loud and warm.

    If linux works, you will be missing out on some power budget for the GPU and CPU I believe… You should be stuck at whatever "standard" power limits are. I do not believe setting the higher power limit in windows and then booting Linux will keep the power limits long term, I tried setting higher limits in Windows then killing the NUC software/service/driver and eventually my settings returned to default.

    • When you switched from XMP to SPD (standard JEDEC) would it default to 4800MT/s?

      • I only had a 4800 kit at the time, so yes.
        No manual timing adjustment either, no frequency adjustment.

        Running XMP caused issues with a fixed/high fan speed.

    • +1

      I found my old notes for the power limits and corresponding profile in the NUC software, the GPU figures are actual power draw measured in HWINFO.
      Benchmark profile maxes out the fan speed, I could never find a workaround to get a higher GPU power limit (or 85W) without max fans.

      The Intel "spec" for an A730M is 80W-120W so this laptop seems to be aiming for the minimum power design.
      Maybe you could try mess with CPU power limits to see if the GPU can draw more, didn't seem to do anything at all when I tried.

      Benchmark: PL1: 45W PL2: 90W GPU: 85W

      Performance: PL1: 45W PL2: 90W GPU: 75W

      Balanced: PL1: 35W PL2: 80W GPU: 65W

      Battery Saver: PL1: 35W PL2: 65W GPU: 52W-58W

      • Thanks for the detailed info Huespalt. I'd be interested to see what the CPU is power-limited to in HWiNFO once I open mine.

        I've heard there are issues with Resizable Bar in the the newest versions.

        • I don't think there is an issue, just incorrectly reported in some software (including ARC control) which is only reading GPU0 which is integrated graphics. Resizable bar is not a thing on the integrated graphics.
          GPUz, checking with other software or device manager confirms it is enabled for the A730M.

          Even Intel say check with third party software. In the past there was an Intel community post about it referencing this laptop kit specifically and Intel referred to the below link.
          https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000…

  • +1

    Intel transitioned their NUC Next Unit of Computing mini PCs and laptops to ASUS, so there's not much in the way of support for them from Intel. If Intel can't build hardware using its own Intel chips, why should anyone else Intel chips?

    And since ASUS has its own laptops, the NUC laptops are redundant to their lineup, and kind of in a void? I'm not sure who still supports them after Jan 2024.

    https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000…

  • +1

    Intel has already closed and deleted their laptop-relevant community forums, and removed a number of support articles. NUC laptop support from Intel is minimal at this point.

  • My remorse level just started inching up. :P

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