Intel is giving final touches to a "Crimson Canyon" fully-assembled NUC desktop model which combines the company's first 10 nm Core processor, and AMD Radeon discrete graphics. The NUC8i3CYSM desktop from Intel packs a Core i3-8121U "Cannon Lake" SoC, 8 GB of dual-channel LPDDR4 memory, and discrete AMD Radeon RX 540 mobile GPU with 2 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory. A 1 TB 2.5-inch hard drive comes included, although you also get an M.2-2280 slot with both PCIe 3.0 x4 (NVMe) and SATA 6 Gbps wiring. The i3-8121U packs a 2-core/4-thread CPU clocked up to 3.20 GHz and 4 MB of L3 cache; while the RX 540 packs 512 stream processors based on the "Polaris" architecture.

The NUC8i3CYSM offers plenty of modern connectivity, including 802.11ac + Bluetooth 5.0 powered by an Intel Wireless-AC 9560 WLAN card, wired 1 GbE from an Intel i219-V controller, consumer IR receiver, an included beam-forming microphone, an SDXC card reader, and stereo HD audio. USB connectivity includes four USB 3.1 type-A ports including a high-current port. Display outputs are care of two HDMI 2.0b, each with 7.1-channel digital audio passthrough. The company didn't reveal pricing, although you can already read a performance review of this NUC from the source link below.

It isn't unusual for AMD or NVIDIA to launch OEM-specific graphics chips, and it would seem that AMD is doing just so with its rebranded yet improved RX 500 series. Now, it's time for the RX 540 to surface, which, like the name implies, flies right below the RX 550 in terms of specs, though you wouldn't know it without a closer look.

The chip packs the same 8 CUs as the RX 550 (512 stream processors), but its memory bandwidth (in 2 GB or 4 GB flavors) peaks at 96 GB/s (lower than the RX 550's 112 GB/s.) However, its core clocks see an interesting boost from the RX 550's 1183 MHz boost clocks to a "up to 1219 MHz" value, which should alleviate the performance impact from the stunted memory bandwidth. This is a GPU that's likely to be used by OEMs and system integrators, whether on desktop computers or in laptops, though I do have to wonder regarding this configuration. I'd expect higher clocks on the core to increase power consumption more than the offset allowed by the reduced memory clocks, but then again, I'm not an AMD engineer.