When comparing MinnowBoard Max vs Intel NUC, the Slant community recommends Intel NUC for most people. In the question“What are the best single-board computers?” Intel NUC is ranked 13th while MinnowBoard Max is ranked 29th. The most important reason people chose Intel NUC is:
The Atom based Celeron and Pentium NUCs have a very low TDP of 10 or 15W.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Completely open source
MinnowBoard is a non-profit backed by Intel. meaning it gets advice for its architecture by Intel. But all hardware and software parts, including all drivers are completely free and open source.
Pro USB 3.0 available
The MinnowBoard Max has 2 USB ports, one of which is a USB 3.0.
Pro Great for hacking away
Other than releasing all drivers as open source, Intel has also made the schematics of the board available to download. This way, hackers can give it a try and build anything they want without restrictions.
Pro Low TDPs
The Atom based Celeron and Pentium NUCs have a very low TDP of 10 or 15W.
Pro Intel based GPU
Almost any OS has support for the intel i9xx based GPUs.
Pro x86/amd64-based
Plenty of Operating Systems to choose.
Pro HDMI-CEC
6th gen+ models have CEC support.
Cons
Con Multi-USB hub almost a necessity
Because it has only two USB ports, one of which to be used for charging, a multi-USB hub is needed to connect a keyboard and mouse which are the absolute minimal external devices to be able to use and configure the MinnowBoard.
Con No official OS images have the kernel with GPIO enabled
Although this is not the board's fault per-se, no official OS image has enabled support for GPIO. But if the kernel is compiled from source, it can be compiled with GPIO and PWM enabled.
Con Intel is a bitch
For an M2-port, HDR, better GPU power or more RAM support Intel wants you to buy the much higher priced iX-based models even if HDR would be possible on Atom GPU's.
