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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magreen - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Ganesh, there's a third category of people interested in powerful iGPUs: those who like their PCs silent, or close to it.As far as I know, there aren't even any fanless GPUs (excluding those with exotic dual-slot cooling towers hanging off of them) that can keep up with Haswell integrated graphics, let alone Iris Pro.
vladx - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
There may be people interested in that but it's too small of a target for Intel.nerd1 - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
I do welcome quadcore NUC offerings, but the pricing is outrageous. For $999 one can easily get a i7 quadcore laptop with 960m GPU, all with RAM, SSD, display, keyboard and so on.Samus - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
And this is 1/5 the size...see?lilmoe - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
No it's not. Laptops have other peripherals to worry about, this doesn't. The PCB portion of a laptop is just as small, if not smaller.The pricing on this thing is (and all other decently spec'ed mini-PCs) is seriously outrageous.
sugarbear7 - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Some people don't want a laptop under any circumstances. They'd prefer a large screen and a comfortable, ergonomic viewing distance, with a separate keyboard, a real mouse... and are happy with laptop internals.8steve8 - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
yeah given it has no competition, it's hard to argue the price is wrong.I wish they went all in on USB-C, they could have USB-C Power in (which can deliver like 100W).. also needs at least one front facing usb-c port.
I'd rather have 1 inch extra height and a regular HSF to cool the CPU/GPU, this might be loud... but i'll wait for a solid review.
nerd1 - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
We had Brix Pro and Alienware Alpha for a while.8steve8 - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
brix pro was super loud which ruins it for most people, it was also 4th gen core, this is 6th gen core.8steve8 - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
maybe i should have said no current competition... a skylake brix pro would compete, but it doesn't exist.