Intel introduced an impressive Next Unit of Computing mini-PC back in CES 2020 – a 5L modular gaming PC with enough space for a discrete graphics card. Now, Team Blue has introduced the Ghost Canyon’s successor in Computex 2021 – the Beast Canyon, an 8L Intel NUC 11 Extreme Kit.
This Beast Canyon can accommodate a graphics card up to 12 inches in length, but in Ghost Canyon, you get the option for small-form-factor cards, which are mostly limited in selection. This NUC comes in the small-form-factor category with a volume of 8L.
Intel has already launched a Tiger Lake NUC for gaming earlier this year, and now it’s pretty surprising to see the Beast Canyon joining the lineup. This compute unit will support several Tiger Lake H SKUs, including Core i5, i7, and i9 models.
The device will support dual-channel DDR4-3200 memory, and three devices can be attached through the M.2 slot. The Tiger Lake-H supports PCIe Gen4 means both the discrete graphics and the NVMe storage will run at its full speed.
Intel has not stated which graphics card is gonna be supported, but we can assume that it will support both AMD RDNA2 and NVIDIA Ampere GPUs. It might also feature Thunderbolt 4 connectors, up to a maximum of three 4K display support, and advanced connectivity options, such as Bluetooth 5, 10 GB Ethernet port, and WiFi6.
There are a few changes, such as one ethernet port instead of two and two additional USB Type-A ports, and all these come with three years of warranty.
