Intel's Skull Canyon NUC is Official: $650, Shipping In May
by Ganesh T S on March 16, 2016 10:00 PM EST
Back in January, Intel had provided us with information about the Skull Canyon NUC based on a Skylake H-Series CPU(with Iris Pro Graphics). Today, at GDC 2016, Intel made the specifications official. Pricing and availability information was also provided.
The key aspect that was not revealed before was the dimensions. The Skull Canyon NUC (NUC6i7KYK) will come in at 216mm x 116mm x 23mm, with the volume coming in at just 0.69L. For comparison, the Skylake NUC6i5SYK (non-2.5" drive version) comes in at 115mm x 111mm x 32mm (0.41L), while NUC6i5SYH (2.5" drive bay-enabled) one is 115mm x 111mm x 48mm (0.61L). The rest of the specifications are outlined in the table below:
| Intel NUC6i7KYK (Skull Canyon) Specifications | |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-6770HQ Skylake, 4C/8T, 2.6 GHz (Turbo to 3.5 GHz), 14nm, 6MB L2, 45W TDP |
| Memory | 2x DDR4 SO-DIMM (2133+ MHz) |
| Graphics | Intel Iris Pro Graphics 580 (Skylake-H GT4+4e with 128MB eDRAM) |
| Disk Drive(s) | Dual M.2 (SATA3 / PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe / AHCI SSDs) |
| Networking | Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 (2x2 802.11ac - 867 Mbps + Bluetooth 4.2) Intel I-219V Gigabit Ethernet |
| Audio | 3.5mm Audio Jack (Headphone / Microphone) Capable of 5.1/7.1 digital output with HD audio bitstreaming (HDMI) |
| Miscellaneous I/O Ports | 1x Thunderbolt 3 / USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C 4x USB 3.0 (incl. one charging port) 1x SDXC (UHS-I) 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x mini-DP 1.2 Consumer Infrared Sensor |
| Operating System | Barebones |
| Pricing | $650 (Barebones) $999 (Typical build with 16GB DDR4, 256GB SSD and Windows 10) |
| Fact Sheet | Intel NUC6i7KYK GDC Fact Sheet (PDF) |
Note that the HDMI 2.0 output is enabled by an external LSPcon (not Alpine Ridge). So, we will definitely have 4Kp60 output with HDCP 2.2 support over the HDMI port, making it suitable as a future-proof HTPC platform. From a gaming perspective, the availability of Thunderbolt 3 enables users to add an external graphics dock like the recently announced Razer Core eGFX module. Note that any external GPU will be able to talk to the CPU only over a PCIe 3.0 x4 link (which should be plenty in almost all cases).
The Skull Canyon NUC will be available to pre-order on Newegg next month, with shipping in May 2016.
Source: Intel
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Samus - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
Thank you for supporting the enthusiast community, Intel.lilmoe - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
They need to start making motherboards smaller than Mini-ITX, and PSUs to accommodate smaller form factor builds...I want to make my own custom build mini-PC with a mobile processor and better-ish graphics.
sugarbear7 - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Spot on. Me too!mczak - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - link
Looks quite nice and small, though the linked spec sheet says 216mm x 116mm x 23m - quite the tower I'd say :-).zodiacfml - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Nice but the price isn't, though expected. I'm one of those people who comments that for the price, a laptop exists with the same specs.vladx - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
It's obviosly not a budget-oriented solution, premium more likely.spikebike - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Please let there be a popular linux distro that works well on this unit.Drazick - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Ganesh,Will we ever see an higher TDP CPU with the Iris Pro 580?
Something like i7 with 90 Watt TDP or even better and Extreme Edition?
Otherwise, how could one fight the throttling of the CPU and make it work hard and fast?
Thank You.
ganeshts - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Currently, only the -H series CPUs support the GT4e configuration.I don't think Skylake will have any SKU with eDRAM and high TDP.
Future generations might have something similar to what you mention, but, I am not sure Intel's marketing team will find a lot of takers for that - Getting eDRAM helps drive up performance while bringing down system-level power consumption, but that comes with higher price. Such a combination makes sense only for mobile / laptop platforms, or machines like the Skull Canyon NUC.
90W TDP CPUs are either used by people who don't care about graphics performance OR by people who are going to use a discrete GPU anyway. Note that Intel iGPU, even with eDRAM, can't compete with even mid-range current-generation dGPUs.
Drazick - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Hi Ganesh,Well, I'm willing to buy this "Pricey" CPU.
The problem is I hate it being throttled down so much.
I think we need to think about something new in respect to the GPU.
It can be used and used as Vector Processing Unit (GPGPU) and in that respect, Intel's offering can be good enough (Once their Drivers will be good).
Running GPGPU on embedded GPU makes much more sense and someone who would like that will enjoy such offering.
I don't know, is there a way to buy 45W and make it not throttle?
Thank You.