Intel debuts AMD XConnect-ready Skull Canyon NUC at GDC 2016

[HEXUS]

This NUC features a 6th gen Intel Core i7 CPU, Intel Iris Pro graphics and Thunderbolt 3.

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[Tabbykatze]

That. Looks. Hot.

As in, very nice and hopefully not on fire!

[Vorlon99]

That. Looks. Hot.

As in, very nice and hopefully not on fire!

Lol, yeah, I agree, very cool/hot styling!
Great for under TV/lounge gaming, but then the styling would get lost being hidden away on the TV cabinet. Much like a console, but better... and dearer

[scaryjim]

You know, whilst an external GPU would knock this up a notch, that Iris Pro 580 could be fairly impressive on its own. A quick bit of research tell sme it's a 72EU + 128MB eDRAM solution.

The latest Gigabyte Brix is restricted to the HD 520 - 24 EUs, no eDRAM - and puts in over 800 points on FireStrike. If the graphics performance scales nicely with hardware, Intel could have a mobile chip with ~ 3000 in firestrike: that's twice what an A10 7850k puts out...

[mattburnzy]

I wanna see how hot this thing runs fully decked out. The size is baffling me.

[MercutioUK]

So notebookcheck has the graphics pegged at "around a 945M". So... hardly stellar but it'll just about run most things with stuff turned down.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Pro-Graphics-P580.158272.0.html

[scaryjim]

So notebookcheck has the graphics pegged at "around a 945M". So... hardly stellar but it'll just about run most things with stuff turned down. ...

The 945M looks to be a mobile version of the GTX 750 (non-Ti). That's pretty tasty for Intel integrated graphics, given where they were a few years back. My living room gaming PC was just upgraded to an i3-2100 and a GTX 750, and it's doing a decent job of medium detail 1080p gaming. Being able to get all of that power into a tiny chassis like this? That wouldn't be half bad...

[Nifl]

If the graphics performance scales nicely with hardware, Intel could have a mobile chip with ~ 3000 in firestrike: that's twice what an A10 7850k puts out...

Yeah, but those APUs also deliver decent framerates in games, not just benchmarks.

[Xlucine]

I'm not sure I see the point in Xconnect for a desktop PC - you could just get an MITX or MATX chassis, $650 is a lot for a CPU, case, motherboard and power supply.

[lumireleon]

$999 for win10, 6gb ram & 256 ssd sounds alot. You can get a decent gaming laptop with that featuring an i7, 12gb ram, GTX 960m, 15inch screen and old timer 1TB HDD but way faster in graphics than any intel HD graphics in existence.

[eugenius]

Why is this not fanless?

[scaryjim]

Why is this not fanless?

Because it uses a 45W mobile chip. 45W is a lot to dissipate passively, particularly if you want a full cover case. I've got a 2U rack system that is cooled by a single 140mm fan, but that requires having a huge blow-hole cut in the top of the case....

[jigger]

$999 for win10, 6gb ram & 256 ssd sounds alot. You can get a decent gaming laptop with that featuring an i7, 12gb ram, GTX 960m, 15inch screen and old timer 1TB HDD but way faster in graphics than any intel HD graphics in existence.

A proper 4c 8t i7 with decent clockspeed, support for 32GB and all the whistles and bells anyone could hope for packed into a 216mm x 116mm x 23mm box. The UK price seems decent to me.

[canopus72]

In typical bintel tradition, it is going to be overhyped and overpriced.

[BadHead]

It would be good if the 256GB SSD was user upgradable, as this is capacity is OK for th OS on it's own, but not for a whole system.

[BadHead]

Even thogh it has a SD slot for upto a 512Gb car, this is not as fast as an SSD and therefore would be no good to store games, etc.