Amazon, Newegg, and Walmart have started to sell Intel’s Crimson Canyon NUC that is based on Cannon Lake processors produced using the company’s 10 nm process technology. Availability of the NUC8i3CY-series UCFF PCs at major retailers indicated that Intel is making its 10 nm CPUs in rather sizeable volumes.

The Intel NUC8i3CY-series UCFF PCs are powered by Intel’s dual-core Core i3-8121U processor paired with soldered-down 4 GB or 8 GB of LPDDR4-2666 memory and AMD’s Radeon 540 dGPU (codenamed Lexa, based on Polaris architecture featuring 512 SPs) with 2 GB of GDDR5. The computer is equipped with 1 TB SATA hard drive, but it also has an M.2-2280 slot for a SATA or a PCIe SSD. When it comes to connectivity, the new NUCs are outfitted with Intel’s Wireless-AC 9560 CNVi 802.11ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 5 solution that supports up to 1.73 Gbps throughput over 160 MHz channels. In addition, the systems have one GbE, two HDMI 2.0a outputs, four USB 3.0 Type-A ports (one supporting charging), an SD card reader, a TRRS audio connector for headsets, and a digital audio connector for 7.1-channel sound systems.

Intel Crimson Canyon NUC PCs
  NUC8i3CYSN NUC8i3CYSM
CPU Intel Core i3-8121U
2C/4T
2.2 - 3.2 GHz
4 MB cache
15 W TDP
Graphics AMD Radeon 540 GPU
512 stream processors
32 texture units
16 ROPs
2 GB GDDR5 memory
PCH Integrated into CPU
Memory 4 GB LPDDR4-2666 8 GB LPDDR4-2666
Storage 2.5-inch 1 TB HDD pre-installed
M.2 M.2-2280 slot supporting SSDs and Intel Optane Memory caching SSDs
Wi-Fi/BT Intel Wireless-AC 9560
802.11ac Wi-Fi + BT 5
Ethernet Intel Gigabit Ethernet controller (i219-V)
Display Outputs 2 × HDMI 2.0a
Audio 3.5 mm TRRS audio jack
7.1 channel audio output via HDMI
Optical output
IR Consumer Infrared (CIR) sensor on the front panel
USB 4 USB 3.0 Type-A (5 Gbps), one with charging
Other I/O SDXC card reader with UHS-I support
Dimensions 117 × 112 × 52 mm | 4.6 × 4.4 × 2.04 inch
PSU External, 90 W
OS Pre-installed Microsoft Windows 10 Home x64

Intel's NUC8i3CYSM and NUC8i3CYSN UCFF PCs were announced several months ago and were available from smaller retailers, possibly because the volumes were not large. Availability at Amazon and Walmart indicates that Intel can now offer relatively large volumes of its chips produced at 10 nm node.

When it comes to performance, Cannon Lake has its perks, such as AVX-512 support, though they may not be that obvious in the SFF space as they are in the HPC/HEDT space. Obviously, AMD’s Radeon 540 should also be faster than Intel’s UHD 630 Graphics in games, but keep in mind that when it comes to media playback Intel’s contemporary iGPUs have certain advantages over AMD’s Polaris (e.g., VP9 10-bit decode, support for sophisticated copyright protection methods that require Intel’s SGX, etc.).

Intel's Core Architecture Cadence
Core Generation Microarchitecture Process Node Release Year
2nd Sandy Bridge 32nm 2011
3rd Ivy Bridge 22nm 2012
4th Haswell 22nm 2013
5th Broadwell 14nm 2014
6th Skylake 14nm 2015
7th Kaby Lake 14nm+ 2016
8th Kaby Lake-R
Coffee Lake-S
Kaby Lake-G
Coffee Lake-U/H
Whiskey Lake-U
Amber Lake-Y
Cannon Lake-U
14nm+
14nm++
14nm+
14nm++
14nm++
14nm+
10nm
2017
2017-2018
2018
2018
2018
2018
2017*
9th Coffee Lake Refresh 14nm** 2018
Unknown Ice Lake (Consumer) 10nm? 2019?
Cascade Lake (Server)
Cooper Lake (Server)
Ice Lake (Server)
14nm**
14nm**
10nm
2018
2019
2020
* Single CPU For Revenue
** Intel '14nm Class'

The Intel NUC8i3CYSM with 4 GB of RAM and 1 TB HDD currently costs $540 at Amazon.com, which is in line with MSRP of $530 announced in August. Newegg sells the same product for $533.6. Meanwhile, Walmart carries the version with 8 GB of RAM for $570.

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Source: Dylan522p/Twitter

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  • DigitalFreak - Monday, December 3, 2018 - link

    So they got a dual-core CPU with no (or non-functional) IGP working on 10nm. Not something to be proud of.
  • notb - Monday, December 3, 2018 - link

    Thing is though: they have a product made using next gen node (and they were the first to deliver in consumer market). That's all that matters.
    Apple has one as well, so does Samsung (not offered yet but already manufactured).

    Sure, these are all low voltage, tiny chips. You can't make a 100W desktop part using that tech. But it shows that 7/10nm is already here. Now it's just a matter of refining this tech to make larger chips possible.
  • Eliadbu - Monday, December 3, 2018 - link

    they have been able to make working chips for long time, the thing is just being able to make working chips is not enough in the semi conductors market you need make it profitable and this requires 2 things: volume and yields, I'm sure they got the volume but the yields are the issue. if you did not get to high enough yields\ defects threshold, you can't mass produce and keep the business profitable meaning in a free market you will just go out of business quickly. all the players know it well this is why Samsung delayed their production of 7nm node and GlobalFoundries just canceled their 7nm node development completely they just knew their node won't be profitable enough (or at all) to justify such a huge spending. as it looks like only TSMC are on tracks with their 7nm node(s) which should not be surprising as they are the largest pure-play semiconductor foundry in the world and by big margins, as the size the decrease and we face more and more issues manufacturing in small feature sizes less and less can keep up.
  • danjw - Monday, December 3, 2018 - link

    TSMC is not just on track, but delivering products. Apple's A12 SOCs in the current generation iPhones and now iPads. Those are shipping products.
  • Santoval - Monday, December 3, 2018 - link

    No, that's not "all that matters". Only high volume manufacturing matters in this industry. And I mean HVM of fully functioning parts, which also do not have a 700 MHz lower turbo clock than the generation of CPUs they supposedly replace, despite no TDP stress from their iGPU. This CPU is literally a beta CPU, which Intel released on a highly problematic node (they do not even intend to fix their original 10nm node, they will rather apply all the fixes to their second gen 10nm+ node, for the HVM release of Ice Lake) just to report a nominal 2018 release of 10nm CPUs to their shareholders and thus avoid a stock sell-off. That's all there is to it.
  • edzieba - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link

    Sure, and GF abandoned 7nm entirely, TSMC backed off of 7nm EUV for SAQP, Samsung dumped their original 7nm plans (7nm LPE) for a future-EUV-maybe 7nm LPP, etc. Everyone is having trouble getting good 7nm yields, everyone is using 'stopgap' processes while they try and get their 'real' processes up to yield.
  • Samus - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link

    And it's still 15w and it's still in line with the performance of a dual-core 14nm CPU. So where is the benefit!?
  • Dug - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link

    It's new, so it must be betters!
  • nico_mach - Monday, December 3, 2018 - link

    These default cases are looking really tired. They should stick with the skull cases or find a way to spruce these up. I don't mean alien/dragon LED graphics. More like Amazon's tv box glowing bar of destiny thing, for example. Or even the ancient mac mini design, which is so much cleaner it has aged really well. Intel should have the resources, and clearly this isn't an experiment.
  • MattMe - Monday, December 3, 2018 - link

    I don't think I could disagree more.
    These aren't aimed at flashy gaming youth. They're primarily aimed at business and HTPC uses, neither of which want any flashing lights on their box.
    Keep it subtle, keep it small.

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