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It appears like Intel is popping out with one other high-powered Next Unit of Computing (NUC) machine, one that can pack a meaty 14-core/20-thread Alder processor and a discrete Arc A770M GPU from the highest of its cellular stack right into a compact bundle. The Serpent Canyon NUC, because it’s referred to as, is a follow-up to the Phantom Canyon NUC that got here out final yr.
Intel’s NUC household has grown and brought totally different sizes and shapes over time. What began provide as an ultra-compact mini PC has branched into small type issue (SFF) territory. Not all are created equal, although. The NUC 11 Extreme (Beast Canyon) and NUC 12 Extreme (Dragon Canyon) we reviewed each fell squarely into mini PC territory with boxier and modular designs constructed round Intel’s Compute Element.
In distinction, the Phanton Canyon NUC 11 is slimmer and extra compact total, with cellular parts inside. Specifically, an eleventh Gen Core processor primarily based on Tiger Lake paired up with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 GPU. The leaked Serpent Canyon NUC appears to take care of an identical profile whereas upgrading the internals to current-gen {hardware}.
A person on the Baidu boards posted a handful of images and specs. According to the put up, Intel’s highest-end configuration will characteristic a twelfth Gen Core i7-12700H processor, which is comprised of six P-cores clocked at as much as 4.7GHz, eight E-cores clocked at as much as 3.5GHz, and 24MB of L3 cache.
On the GPU facet, Intel is switching from NVIDIA graphics to its personal newly minted discrete GPUs, culminating within the Arc A770M. As famous in Intel’s slide above, its preliminary cellular launch includes 5 GPUs throughout three efficiency tiers: Arc 3, Arc 5, and Arc 7. The A770M is the burliest of the bunch with 32 Xe cores, 32 ray tracing items, a 1,650MHz graphics lock, and 16GB of GDDR6 tied to a 256-bit reminiscence bus.
There’s no point out of system RAM (we think about a minimum of 16GB of DDR4 or DDR5) or storage (NVMe SSD, undoubtedly). But the poster did disclose particulars concerning the entrance and rear I/O association.
On the entrance, customers may have entry to an SDXC card slot supporting UHS-II, a Thunderbolt 4 port, a 3.5mm audio port, and a USB 3.2 Type-A port. Then on the rear, there are 4 extra USB 3.2 Type-A ports, an Intel 2.5G LAN port, one other Thunderbolt 4 port, one other 3.5mm audio jack, an HDMI 2.1 output, and two DisplayPort 2.0 connectors.
There’s no point out of value or when it will launch. But wanting on the specs alone, the Serpent Canyon NUC appears like an intriguing improve (relying in fact on how the A770M fares for gaming).