At CES 2021 platform, Intel announced its series of NUCs based on the Tiger Lake SoCs. The NUC11 Performance lineup was covered earlier. This piece looks at another exciting NUC11 offering in the enthusiast category. The NUC11 Enthusiast dubbed as the Phantom Canyon brings the Tiger Lake-U Core i7-1165G7 and adds an NVIDIA RTX 2060 to create a compact system suitable for gaming, streaming, and content creation.

The machine is nothing to scold at and has reportedly only two SKUs. According to sources, the NUC11PHKi7C is the basic version, while the NUC11PHKi7CAA comes with 2x 8GB DDR4-3200 SODIMMs and an Intel Optane Memory H10 (32GB + 512GB) NVMe drive. The NUC11PHKi7CAA also comes with Windows 10 Home pre-installed.

The blue also provides a host of I/O options with the new NUC11 Enthusiast.

2 Thunderbolt 4 ports (one in the front and one in the rear)
the display output from the Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 in the TGL-U processor
Two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports
One SDXC UHS-II slot
An audio jack
A quad-microphone array at the front panel.
an audio output jack (supporting TOSLINK) on the rear.
A single 2.5 Gbps LAN port
Four USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports
Display outputs (HDMI 2.0b and mini-DP 1.4a) from the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060.

CPU	Intel Core i7-1165G7 Tiger Lake-U, 4C/8T 2.8 – 4.7 GHz 28W TDP	Intel Core i7-8809G Kaby Lake, 4C/8T 3.1 – 4.2 GHz 100W Package TDP	Intel Core i7-6770HQ Skylake, 4C/8T 2.6 – 3.5 GHz 45W TDP
GPU	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6 (N18E-G1-B Notebook Class 115W) @ 1.285 GHz (Discrete) Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics (96EU) @ 1.3 GHz (Integrated / On-Die)	Radeon RX Vega M GH 4GB HBM2 @ 1.19 GHz (Discrete / On-Package) Intel® HD Graphics 630 @ 1.1 GHz (Integrated / On-Die)	Intel® Iris Pro Graphics 580 @ 1.05 GHz (Integrated / On-Die) 128MB SDRAM
Memory	2x DDR4-3200 SODIMMs 1.2V, 64GB max.	2x DDR4-2400+ SODIMMs 1.2V, 32GB max.	2x DDR4-2133 SODIMMs 1.2V, 32GB max.
Motherboard	5.5″ x 8″ UCFF	4″ x 5″ UCFF
Storage	1x M.2 22×80/110 (key M) PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe/AHCI SSD 1x M.2 2280 (key M) SATA3 or PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe/AHCI SSD	2x M.2 22×42/80 (key M) SATA3 or PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe/AHCI SSD
I/O Ports	2x Thunderbolt 4 Fast-Charging (front + rear) 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (front) 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A Fast-Charging (front) 4x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (rear) 1x SDXC UHS-II Card Slot (front) CIR (front) 1x SATA III Power + Data Internal Header 2x USB 2.0 Internal Header	2x Thunderbolt 3 (rear) 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (rear) 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (front) 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (front) 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A Fast-Charging (front) 1x SDXC UHS-I Card Slot (front) CIR (front) 1x SATA III Power + Data Internal Header 2x USB 2.0 Internal Header	1x Thunderbolt 3 (rear) 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (rear) 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (front) 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A Fast-Charging (front) 1x SDXC UHS-I Card Slot (front) CIR (front) 1x SATA III Power + Data Internal Header 2x USB 2.0 Internal Header
Networking	Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2×2 802.11ax Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 5.1 module) 1 × 2.5 GbE port (Intel I225-LM)	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 (2×2 802.11ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.2 module) 2 × GbE ports (Intel I219-LM + Intel I210-AT)	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 (2×2 802.11ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.2 module) 1 × GbE ports (Intel I219-LM)
Display Outputs	2x DP 1.4a (via Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, iGPU Display Pipe) 1x mini-DP 1.4a (rear, dGPU, up to 8Kp60, MST) 1x HDMI 2.0b (rear, dGPU, up to 4Kp60)	1x HDMI 2.0a (front, dGPU) 1x HDMI 2.0a (rear, dGPU) 2x mini-DP 1.3 (rear, dGPU) 2x DP 1.3 (via Thunderbolt 3 Type-C ports, dGPU)	1x mini-DP 1.2 (rear, iGPU) 1x HDMI 2.0a (rear, iGPU) 1x DP 1.3 (via Thunderbolt 3 Type-C ports, iGPU)
Audio	7.1 digital (over HDMI and DisplayPort) L+R+mic (front) L+R+TOSLINK (rear)
Audio Codec	Realtek ALC700	Realtek ALC233
Enclosure	Metal and plastic Kensington lock with base security
Power Supply	230W (19V @ 12.1A) Adapter	120W (19V @ 6.32A) Adapter
Dimensions	221mm x 142mm x 42mm / 1.3L	221mm x 142mm x 39mm / 1.2L	216mm x 116mm x 23mm / 0.69L
Miscellaneous Features	Replaceable lid with customizable RGB LED illumination Status LEDs in the front panel The quad beam-forming microphone array VESA mounting plate 3-year warranty	Replaceable lid Status LEDs in the front panel VESA mounting plate 3-year warranty