Thursday, August 9th 2018
Intel "Crimson Canyon" NUCs with Discrete GPUs Up for Pre-order
One of the first Intel NUC (next unit of computing) mini PCs to feature completely discrete GPUs (and not MCMs of CPUs and GPUs), the "Crimson Canyon" NUC8i3CYSM and NUC8i3CYSN, are up for pre-order. The former is priced at USD $529, while the latter goes for $574. The two combine Intel's 10 nm Core i3-8121U "Cannon Lake" SoC with AMD Radeon 540 discrete GPU. Unlike the "Hades Canyon" NUC, which features an MCM with a powerful AMD Radeon Vega M GPU die and a quad-core "Kaby Lake" CPU die; the "Crimson Canyon" features its processor and GPU on separate packages. The Radeon 540 packs 512 stream processors, 32 TMUs, and 16 ROPs; with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory.
All that's differentiating the NUC8i3CYSM from the NUC8i3CYSN is memory. You get 4 GB of LPDDR4 memory with the former, and 8 GB of it with the latter. Both units come with a 2.5-inch 1 TB HDD pre-installed. You also get an M.2-2280 slot with PCIe 3.0 x4 wiring, and support for Optane caching. Intel Wireless-AC 9560 WLAN card handles wireless networking, while an i219-V handles wired. Connectivity includes four USB 3.0 type-A ports, one of which has high current; an SDXC card reader, CIR, two HDMI 2.0 outputs, and 7.1-channel HD audio. The NUC has certainly grown in size over the years. This one measures 117 mm x 112 mm x 52 mm (WxDxH). An external 90W power-brick adds to the bulk.
Source:
Anandtech
All that's differentiating the NUC8i3CYSM from the NUC8i3CYSN is memory. You get 4 GB of LPDDR4 memory with the former, and 8 GB of it with the latter. Both units come with a 2.5-inch 1 TB HDD pre-installed. You also get an M.2-2280 slot with PCIe 3.0 x4 wiring, and support for Optane caching. Intel Wireless-AC 9560 WLAN card handles wireless networking, while an i219-V handles wired. Connectivity includes four USB 3.0 type-A ports, one of which has high current; an SDXC card reader, CIR, two HDMI 2.0 outputs, and 7.1-channel HD audio. The NUC has certainly grown in size over the years. This one measures 117 mm x 112 mm x 52 mm (WxDxH). An external 90W power-brick adds to the bulk.
5 Comments on Intel "Crimson Canyon" NUCs with Discrete GPUs Up for Pre-order
MCMs are an added expense compared to separate packages (due to manufacturing complexities, especially with EMIB-connected HBM2) which can be bought off-the-shelf, and thus (for now) reserved for high-end products. This makes sense. Sticking a Radeon 540M on an MCM would both make the package huge (it would need pinouts for all GDDR5 channels and the regular DDR4 interface, plus all the other, regular CPU and GPU pins), in fact it'd be a far larger package with more complex mounting than the KBL-G series. This would make zero sense for a low-end, low-volume product like this.
This is in no way, shape or form a successor to the Skull Canyon and Hades Canyon high-end NUCs. Not even close. This is low-end even by NUC standards. Sure, the GPU is faster than Intel's UHD630 - but that doesn't take much. It's definitely not a gaming chip. The GDDR5 should make it faster than the iGPU in the Ryzen 5 2500U (and possibly also the 2700U), but that's about it.