Intel’s ‘Frost Canyon’ NUC Revealed: SFF PC w/ Comet Lake
by Anton Shilov on November 15, 2019 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Desktop
- Intel
- NUC
- UCFF
- Comet Lake
Intel Thailand this week inadvertently disclosed the company’s plans to release its next-generation NUC small form-factor PCs based on Comet Lake processors in the near future. Meanwhile, a store from the Netherlands has also inadvertently revealed the NUC's key specifications. As it turns out, Intel’s ‘Frost Canyon’ NUCs will feature processors with up to six cores and will support up to 64 GB of memory.
Intel’s NUC 10 ‘Frost Canyon’ family will include multiple models based on the company’s 10th Generation Core i3/i5/i7 processors with two, four, or six cores as well as UHD Graphics, according to MyElectronics.nl, an online retailer. The CPUs will feature a configurable TDP-up of 25 W, so they will work at higher clocks all the time, thus providing decent levels of performance that one comes to expect from a desktop PC. The systems will feature two SO-DIMM slots that will support 32 GB DDR4 modules (allowing 64 GB in total), a first for Intel’s NUCs.
The new NUCs will be available in slim and regular versions, which offer M.2-only storage and M.2 + 2.5-inch SATA storage respectively. As for connectivity, the systems will have Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.2 Gen 2, GbE, HDMI, and the usual audio connectors. One of the interesting features supported by the upcoming Frost Canyon NUCs will be integrated far-field microphones that support Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana assistants.
Exact launch date of Intel’s NUC 10 systems in unknown, but expect the new SFF PCs to hit the market in time for the holiday season. As for pricing, we can only make guesses.
Related Reading:
- Intel Launches Comet Lake-U and Comet Lake-Y: Up To 6 Cores for Thin & Light Laptops
- Intel Launches Low-End Comet Lake CPUs: Pentium Gold 6405U & Celeron 5205U
- Intel's Bean Canyon (NUC8i7BEH) Coffee Lake NUC Review - Ticking the Right Boxes
- Intel NUC8i7HVK (Hades Canyon) Gaming Performance - A Second Look
- Intel’s Crimson Canyon NUCs with Cannon Lake CPU & Radeon dGPU Available for Pre-Order
- Intel’s Islay Canyon Mini NUCs Available: Whiskey Lake, Radeon 540X, 8GB LPDDR3
Sources: Intel Thailand, FanlessTech, MyElectronics.nl (via Twitter/momomo_us)
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drothgery - Friday, November 15, 2019 - link
If/when Intel gets 10nm or smaller yields to the point they can start making discount CPUs, then dual-core CPUs (even in U/Y series SKUs) will essentially die off, I'd bet. I'd expect the next generation chip for that market space is either something like Lakefield or a pure-Tremont quad-core.Great_Scott - Friday, November 15, 2019 - link
It's good to see that Frost Canyon doesn't have Ice Lake.I wonder how many people they expect to fool with the "cold" product codenames?
nandnandnand - Friday, November 15, 2019 - link
Who can bother keeping track of all the Lakes, Canyons, and Coves?Good thing AMD NUCs are coming.
chang3d - Saturday, November 16, 2019 - link
Problem with the AMD NUCs are that they are likely to not have thunderbolt support. The intel graphics is plenty for media playback, but, with external graphics, the NUCs can be true gaming machines. AMD NUCs are only good up to light gaming. Until AMD support thunderbolt or the next version of USB that has this baked in, I wouldn’t recommend AMD NUCs unless enterprise or home server.Dragonstongue - Saturday, November 16, 2019 - link
The problem with Intel at this point is the "buyer base" defends them giving the least possible for as high ASP as they seem they can get.If they would DITCH low core count trash on anything but the very lowest denominator products (such as used in.. I don't know, calculators?) then they like AMD would be giving more cores and threads for a good cost with much less difference in total pci-e lane segregation among other things.
Intel can do "basic" graphics, they have been able to do this for a good while now, but AMD still "rules" for acceptable GAMING grade performance (when not shafted by various OEM/AIB whatever you want to call them) using bare minimum single stick or mix single and dual stick RAM.
IMO. Intel truly needs to "come to the future" stop worrying so much about binning the crud out of all their chips (unless specific market has no other need for such) i.e netbook (no need for uber performance) for the rest, I am sure with their "market leading designs" they can figure out a way to keep ACTUAL TDP low with a higher core AND thread count while keeping "on the shelf pricing" reasonable.
To each their own, they can do it, given seems like no matter what @#$!@# they pull they still record massive profits anyways...time to get with the times Intel as well as those whom buy their products, hell they should enact a "we buy back" program, so they can get all the yummy stuff from chips that are best off to be salvaged if they REALLY want to keep power use down, world wide.
(^.^)
mode_13h - Friday, November 15, 2019 - link
> The CPUs will feature a configurable TDP-up of 25 W, so they will work at higher clocks all the time, thus providing decent levels of performance that one comes to expect from a desktop PC.Comet Lake = 14 nm. Running 6 of those cores on just 25 W will not provide "decent levels of performance that one comes to expect from a desktop PC".
Some previous i7 NUCs have burned up to 28 W and maybe higher. So, this level of power consumption is not new to the platform.
yacoub35 - Sunday, November 17, 2019 - link
They sound nice aside from the microphone spy BS. Hopefully someone will make a diagram of what to disable or remove from the PCB to physically turn that crap off. Don't trust software switches.flgt - Sunday, November 17, 2019 - link
Can these be run like a laptop configuration where you hook them to a USB-C monitor that also delivers power to the NUC?meacupla - Sunday, November 17, 2019 - link
For such a low power device, I'm surprised they didn't go with USB-C PD for power