Intel NUC Beast Canyon review | PC Gamer - clintonmysing44

Our Verdict

The latest Intel NUC isn't the cheapest small form cistron gaming PC you can buy, but IT does pack a hell of a lot of power and entrance into its clayey chassis.

For

Great performance for forg and play
Lilliputian size fits a full-size GPU
Excellent excerpt of IO ports

Against

Selfsame expensive
Not much room for upgrade

PC Gamer Verdict

The latest Intel NUC isn't the cheapest small form factor gaming PC you stool buy, but it does pack a hell of a lot of power and charm into its compact chassis.

Pros

+
Great performance for work and play
+
Tiny sized fits a life-size GPU
+
First-class selection of Io ports

Cons

-
Very expensive
-
Not much room for advance

The Intel NUC Animate being Canyon is the Godzilla of NUCs. But it's still small, then maybe the Godzuki of NUCs. Start at $1,399, Beast Canyon is built around an Intel NUC 11 Extreme. Somehow Intel has managed to conform to a air-filled-rabbit-sized distinct GPU alongside information technology in one of the most intriguing small form factor gaming rigs I've encountered. At just ogdoad liters, the figure, with its striking 'Calaveras' style skull logo on the front, makes quite the affirmation (and raises many an eyebrow) when on display happening your desk OR TV cabinet.

Intel NUC Beast Canyon Specs

Central processor: Intel Core i9 11900KB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Atomic number 2
Memory: 16GB DDR4
Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD
Front I/O: 1x 3.5mm audio frequency jack, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1x UHS II SD Card Reader.
Rear I/O: 2x Bombshell 4, 6x USB 3.1 Gen 2, audio ports, 2.5G Ethernet, 1 DisplayPort, 2x HDMI
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, Local area network
PSU: 650W 80 Advantageous Gold
Dimensions: 14.1 x 7.4 x 4.7 inches
Price: $3,000 (£3,000)

Beast Canyon is available with either a Core i9 or Core i7 processor. I've got the flagship Core i9 11900KB here, which is part of the special 65W B-series Tiger Lake family. It's non as fast as the weak 11900K, having a slower base clock of 3.3Ghz and a boost of just 4.3Ghz.

It's unsecured though, so you pot try on and squeeze a little more extinct of information technology. In testing, this CPU is more than sufficient for most games, so the do good of overclocking IT isn't patent. Aside from the core compute elements, everything else is customizable and the unit sent for testing came with an Asus Duple RTX 3060 Ti, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD. You can of course switch over these upward for higher capacity components thanks to the modular nature of the Beast.

The gist of each Beast Canyon is the Reckon Element that houses the CPU soldered to a motherboard and connects to the residuu of the scheme via a PCIe 4.0 x16 Slot. You can swop this out for an upgrade dispirited the road. The Compute Element also contains the mass of the IO including offering support for dual Thunderbolt 4, eight USB 3.1 Gen 2, a UHS-II SD Board reader, 2.5Gb Ethernet, and an HDMI 2.0. Also, depending on whether you have a separate GPU, you'll bring up to deuce HDMI 2.1 and a DisplayPort 1.4.

Beast Canon measures 14.1 inches front to game, 7.4 inches wide, and 4.7 inches advanced which is enough to house a 12-inch long separate GPU and a 650W 80Plus Gold ability supply to hand over plenty juice to everything.

At the fore is the lordly skull logo which you'll either love or hate—the last mentioned for Pine Tree State. It's also RGB lit which makes things even more pronounced. There's additional RGB lighting under the chassis which altogether doesn't look away bad the least bit. I was also happy for the extra USB, SD Card Reader, and headphone jack on the front of the case.

Intel NUC Beast Canton — (Image recognition: Future)

Now talking performance, your mileage will vary supported on your specific configuration. This examine social unit delivered impressive results complete around. Productivity and creative tasks are handled with cool as attested past my scores in Cinebench (11,058) and Geekbench Multicore (8505).

Everyday use in Windows, WWW browse, Adobe Lightroom redaction, and general tasks flew by with no fuss. 3DMark 11 and Uniengine Superposition all delivered great results and this carried o'er to real-world gaming where every title I tested ran well supra 60FPS at 1080p and 1440p with the highest settings.

I was even able to run 4K games at medium to high settings at 60FPS thanks to the arcane powers of Nvidia's tensors and DLSS 2.0. Tied Metro Hegira Enhanced Edition managed an average of 56fps, while Forza Horizon 4 was buttery smooth at 103fps in 4K. This way those looking for a great PC to pair off with their 4K HDMI 2.1 capable Television set won't be disappointed.

As you can imagine, these performance numbers had me involved about the heat produced, merely my fears were quickly blown away. The triple 92mm fan radiator on the teetotum of the case and mesh panels kept everything very cool with CPU and GPU averaging around modest 70's Celsius after unhealthily long grinds in Fate 2 Beyond Light at 4K60ps.

In addition, the noise was minimum—nowhere near as noticeable arsenic most gaming laptops. This makes the Beast Canon a great living room gaming machine that you can hook up to your TV and not irritate the neighbors with your lover noise.

Ultimately, I was really affected with the Intel NUC Beast Canyon and would recommend it in a heartbeat if it weren't for the price. The model reviewed costs about $3,000 which quite frankly is too much. One would have thought the NUC outfit would bring down the overall pricing down but no more.

This kind of money can fix you seriously more powerful hardware (albeit in bigger ITX cases) that would give you far better performance, upgradability, and length of service. Still, if you don't like the complexities of building your own tiny PC that will work great in your livelihood way and desk, then Savage Canon could well be the answer. An expensive reply, for doomed, but hush up an solvent.

Intel NUC Savage Canyon recap

The latest Intel NUC isn't the cheapest small form factor gaming Microcomputer you can buy, but it does wad a Inferno of much of power and magical spell into its compact chassis.

Kizzy is the consummate geek, with black turtleneck aim sensibilities, always on the hunting for the latest, greatest and sexiest tech. He's played Condemn on the OG Pentium and still remembers how to hack a dial-a-phone. After four decades disturbed about tech, atomic number 2's literally scarcely getting started. It's the age of the, geek, baby!