What was once presented as a potential rival to the Raspberry Pi has now become a platform that is making its own way in the highly attractive (and highly competitive) Mini PC market. Intel's NUC series is about to enter a new generation, adopting processors based on the Skylake architecture, along with other advanced elements, including support for DDR4 memory.
There are plenty of users out there willing to replace their old towers with much more compact computers. In early December, we published a list with several suggestions, and among them is the Intel NUC. The Santa Clara giant has successfully managed to pack high performance into a much smaller form factor, but with each new generation, additional benefits in energy efficiency appear. Skylake has been on the market for several months, and Intel's next step is none other than integrating it into the NUC series. The chosen venue for the presentation was CES 2016, where some units were shown.
At first glance, the new Skylake-based Intel NUCs could easily be mistaken for previous models, but the first modifications can be seen on the back. This update adopts a full-size HDMI port (version 1.4b), changes the position of the power connector, and adds an SD card slot on one side. The number of USB ports remains unchanged (four, all USB 3.0, with one special for charging), as does the DisplayPort 1.2 port and the Gigabit Ethernet connector.
Inside, things get even more interesting. The chips chosen by Intel are the Core i3-6100U and the Core i5-6260U, both derived from Ultrabooks. Remember that this i5 chip comes with an Iris graphics module, while the i3 offers Intel HD 520 video.
To all this we must add support for DDR4 memory, two different chassis versions (one for SSDs and the other compatible with 2.5-inch drives), and of course integrated WiFi ac connectivity. So far, this is what Intel showed on the CES floor... However, there is data on an even more advanced NUC. The codename is `"Skull Canyon"`, and it will be equipped with a higher-end Skylake processor (probably a 45-watt Core i7), which will also deliver Iris Pro graphics and compatibility with Thunderbolt 3, opening the door to external graphics cards. Intel did not announce prices for the new NUCs, but we must not forget that they are kits. We will need RAM, storage, and an operating system.
