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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vladx - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
This is a premium design not targeted towards people like yourself.8steve8 - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
not too premium without more TB3/ usb-c ports... also I'm afraid it will be paird with a very ugly and innefficient possibly buzzy/loud AC/DC adapter.nerd1 - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
I'm using a number of industrial fanless SPFF PCs, so I'm actually the target audience of this product.cm2187 - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Will there be linux drivers like with the other intel NUC?darkich - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
Finally..this is the first micro pc I'd like to have.I mean, the GPU is actually usable..it can easily play a ton of steam and older titles in 1080p. And even a fair number of new AAA games on low/medium settings.
ragenalien - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
The alienware alpha should still be more powerful and significantly cheaper.darkich - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
But this is A LOT more compact. One could basically carry it around in a pocketnerd1 - Thursday, March 17, 2016 - link
This one is twice the size of NUC and I highly doubt it will fit in a pocket. It's wider than AW alpha.darkich - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
What?!This is half the width of AW alpha, and less than one third the thickness. And one quarter the weight!
20 cm length, 10 cm width, 2cm thickness. It.is nowhere near the size of the Alpha and would easily fit in a big jacket or pants pocket
nerd1 - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
AW alpha is 200mm wide. This one is 216mm wide. 216 is larger than 200 in my book.