Intel Frost Canyon NUCs have started to show up at retailers in the US. We saw these latest generation NUC mini PCs leak pretty thoroughly back in November last year. The key attraction of Frost Canyon is that, at the higher end of the range, you will find the first Intel NUCs ever available with 6C/12T processors.
Now the Frost Canyon products are official, you can check out Intel sources like the NUC 10 product pages at Intel.com, as well as download and perusing promotional product brief documentation (PDF). As you can see in the slide reproduced above, the new Frost Canyon NUCs are claimed to be up to 2x faster than a typical 5 year old laptop with faster newer Wi-Fi 6 tech, and up to 8x faster connectivity afforded by the Thunderbolt 3 port on board.
Above you can see the tech specs of the trio of base NUC systems that are starting to reach the market as we begin 2020. The range is differentiated quite strongly with the top model offering that headlining 6C/12T Intel Core i7 10710U. Moving down to the i5 model you get a 4C/8T Core i5-10210 inside. Lastly, the i3 model has the Core i3-10110U inside, a 2C/4T processor. All the CPUs are 14 nm Comet Lake U 25W TDP models with Intel UHD Graphics. Choose wisely, as these processors are soldered.
Moving onto availability, Liliputing found these NUCs listed at both Amazon and Newegg in the US. Various RAM/storage configurations of the Intel NUC NUC10I7FNK with Core i7-10710U chip and Windows 10 are listed at Amazon, for example, pricing starting from US$875.
Gigabyte alternative
If you prefer the look, styling, and build quality of the Gigabyte Brix range you might be pleased to know that a new range of Brix is being brewed up featuring a slightly wider range of Comet Lake U processors.
The Gigabyte 'Big Core Brix' CML-U systems feature the processors mentioned above plus an option with the Core i7-10510U. This CPU is a 4C/8T part but comes with significantly faster base/boost clock speeds compared to the i5 model, as well as an expanded Smart Cache and faster iGPU boost clocks (comparison).
Momomo on Twitter leaked the spec documents which shows Brix featuring the four CML-U processors in two chassis options. The larger Brix offers options for expansion cards and 2.5-inch storage devices.
These new updated Gigabyte Brix systems are expected to launch properly at CES 2020. Click through to the Twitter source to look at the full specs list images.
