Home » PC Tech & Gaming News » Intel NUC 12 Extreme ‘Dragon Canyon’ leaks, features Core i9 & Arc Alchemist GPU

Intel NUC 12 Extreme ‘Dragon Canyon’ leaks, features Core i9 & Arc Alchemist GPU

Intel is cooking up their new SFF offering.

Updated: Feb 21, 2022 11:38 am
Intel NUC 12 Extreme ‘Dragon Canyon’ leaks, features Core i9 & Arc Alchemist GPU

WePC is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices subject to change. Learn more

Intel NUC, which skirts the borders of a fully-fledged desktop and a Mini PC has been around for a good few years now, although market penetration for the systems has still been somewhat slow. However, they’re looking to change all of that with its next-generation NUC 12 Extreme, which promises a whole lot of power in an impossibly small form factor that even the most hardcore of ITX enthusiasts would openly weep at. Thanks to Videocardz, who published a leaked version of the Intel NUC spec sheet, we’ve got all of the details that you need to know right here.

Promising a full-desktop LGA 17000 socket, the NUC 12 compute element should be compatible with desktop-class CPUs, so long as they stay under a 65W TDP. But, they state that it will officially ship with either a Core i9-12900 or Core i7-12700 Alder Lake CPU. Therefore, while it is sporting its own socket, it’ll always come bundled with a compatible CPU for the compute element of the system. It remains to be seen whether future iterations of the device will be compatible with upcoming Intel Raptor Lake CPUs. It’s good to see that users might be getting a potential upgrade path regardless, which should stir up some excitement for the NUC 12 Extreme.

Intel NUC 12 Extreme specifications

SKUNUC12EDBi9NUC12EDBi7
ProcessorCore i9-12900 Processor
5.1 GHz Turbo Boost
16C/24T (8P + 8E Cores)
30MB L3 Cache
Core i7-12700 Processor
4.9 GHz Turbo Boost
12C / 24T ( 8P + 4E Cores)
25MB L3 Cache
GraphicsPCIe x 16 Slot, Intel UHD Graphics 770 PCIe x 16 Slot, Intel UHD Graphics 770
MemoryDual-Channel DDR4-3200, 64GB Max Dual-Channel DDR4-3200, 64GB Max
Storage1x PCIe Gen4 NVMe (CPU-attached)
2x PCIe Gen4 NVMe or SATA 3 (PCH-attached)
SSD RAID 0 and RAID 1 compatible
Intel Optane SSD & Optane Memory compatible (M10, H10 & H2-ready)
1x PCIe Gen4 NVMe (CPU-attached)
2x PCIe Gen4 NVMe or SATA 3 (PCH-attached)
SSD RAID 0 and RAID 1 compatible
Intel Optane SSD & Optane Memory compatible (M10, H10 & H2-ready)
Connectivity2x HDMI 2.0b, 2x Thunderbolt 4, 6x USB 3.2, 2x USB 3.1 headers, 2x USB 2.0 headers, up to 3 4K displays, Intel WiFi 6e, Bluetooth 5.2 dual antennas, up to 7.1 multichannel digital audio using HDMI or DisplayPort 2x HDMI 2.0b, 2x Thunderbolt 4, 6x USB 3.2, 2x USB 3.1 headers, 2x USB 2.0 headers, up to 3 4K displays, Intel WiFi 6e, Bluetooth 5.2 dual antennas, up to 7.1 multichannel digital audio using HDMI or DisplayPort
Source: Videocardz

Boasting a good amount of connectivity, the NUC 12 Extreme relies on IO that is mostly based on their older units, with the HDMI 2.0 compatibility only applying if you’re going to be running the system without a discrete graphics card (turns out, they can be difficult to find right now). Curiously enough, there is no DDR5 support for the NUC 12 Extreme. We suspect this is due to the NUC being sold without dedicated RAM, and the SODIMM module form factor being difficult to find in a DDR5 flavor at the moment, therefore, Intel has instead opted for a DDR4 3200 solution, instead.

Dragon Canyon 1
Intel shows off the guts of the NUC 12 Extreme

Intel NUC 12 Extreme leaked price

Notorious Twitter leaker @momomo_us spotted that the NUC 12 extreme was up for pre-order briefly at a US retailer, which also happened to show off pricing. The i9 model begins at $1,714 USD / €1,401 EUR with the i7 model coming in at a cool $1,514 USD / €1,181 EUR respectively.

Intel ARC Alchemist graphics cards spotted with NUC

In a tweet, Intel announced that the Intel Arc Alchemist GPUs will be compatible with their NUC elements, with Intel’s Raja Koduri proudly posing next to a NUC, equipped with an ARC desktop GPU inside, which was reportedly running Tomb Raider on the system. We’re incredibly keen to see what comes out of these ARC Alchemist GPUs, especially since Intel has since doubled down on the fact that we’re going to see ARC Alchemist this quarter.

Intel NUC 12 Extreme potential release date

There is no current release date for the Intel NUC 12 Extreme, but we expect that this hardware will land fairly soon, thanks to the new details that were just handed over to Videocardz, hopefully, we will see a release date soon on this front, as it could once again spice up the small-form-factor computer market.

If you can’t wait for Intel’s GPU offering, be sure to check out where you might be able to find the latest GPUs right here:


Trusted Source

WePC’s mission is to be the most trusted site in tech. Our editorial content is 100% independent and we put every product we review through a rigorous testing process before telling you exactly what we think. We won’t recommend anything we wouldn’t use ourselves. Read more