Why a NUC?

It is a super compact and clean solution for one.

The biggest question we had when we first got our hands on the NUC was, why exactly? Being liquid-cooling enthusiasts, we are all very partial to our huge desktop(s), and those of us who travel generally use a hybrid laptop/tablet. We absolutely loved the idea of the Skull Canyon NUC, but we could not figure out exactly what it could be used for. However, as we did more and more testing, the problems Intel solved with this product suddenly became quite clear to us. We saw four major markets this would appeal to:

• Gamers who have a day job that requires them to travel a lot
• Serious gamers who do a lot of streaming via Twitch, YouTube, etc.
• Casual gamers who primarily play fun online games with their friends, like Rocket League, DOTA, League, Overwatch, etc.
• HTPC, Stream box, Kodi, or Plex

I fall into the first category, and this little box was a life saver this last holiday season. I own a Surface Book, and I paid the extra in order to have the dedicated NVIDIA GPU in it, but like most, I was pretty disappointed with the performance of it, even when trying to play a game like Overwatch. For the holidays, I had to go to Alaska for two weeks, and immediately following that, I went to Vegas for a week. Luckily these days, almost every single decent hotel will have a TV with HDMI input, and all you need to supply is the cable. So instead of having to pack up one of those giant 15+ pound laptops that is thicker than a brick, all I had to pack was this tiny little NUC, an equally small wireless keyboard/trackpad combo (though I feel confident that you may be able to use your phone instead with the right app), an HDMI cable, and a PS4 controller. All of this fits easily into a backpack. This worked very well for me, both at my place in Alaska and for the hotel's TV in Vegas.


The best part after returning from your travels is that you can plop the NUC back onto your desk to then hook up an external GPU via a Thunderbolt 3.0 dock and have a system that can play AAA games at home and be portable enough to play most of your other games on the road. Many laptop manufacturers have tried to create similar experiences, but their solutions are often quite expensive.

I recently learned that serious gamers who put a lot of effort into streaming their gaming actually have a secondary PC that does the streaming to take the stress off of the first PC. The Skull Canyon NUC would be a perfect solution for this instead of having to build a completely new second system because it is small, has a powerful CPU, and streaming does not require a fully dedicated GPU.


The last two markets are a bit more obvious. The NUC is more expensive than a console, but has so much more potential, and I think that the above average consumer will see this. Paired with a Corsair Lapdog, the Skull Canyon NUC is the perfect little gaming PC to fit right under a TV in the living room. It is small, attractive, and reasonably powerful. Not only will it play your games (and keep in mind that it can also stream your games at Ultra via Steam if you have a primary desktop somewhere else in the house), but it will also display all of your media you may have on an external HDD or a home server. No longer does the HTPC in the home have to be an ugly computer by the TV; it can be a sleek, attractive box that can be easily hidden if you so choose.