Intel NUC 12 Extreme 'Dragon Canyon' unveiled with desktop CPUs and enough headroom for 350 W graphics cards

Intel has unleashed the NUC 12 Extreme, a machine that leaked earlier this week. As expected, the NUC 12 Extreme features Intel's latest Compute Element, codenamed 'Eden Bay', which has an LGA1700 socket. As such, the NUC 12 Extreme is compatible with any Alder Lake processor, so long as its PBP is below 65 W.

Additionally, the NUC 12 Extreme supports up to 64 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, three M.2 SSDs connected via PCIe 4.0 and PCIe Gen5 x16 graphics cards. Also, Intel notes that the NUC 12 Extreme is backwards compatible with PCIe Gen4 and Gen3 devices. Moreover, the machine features Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6E connectivity, plus the following ports:

• 1x 10 Gbit/s Ethernet
• 1x 2.5 Gbit/s Ethernet (Core i9 models)
• 1x 3.5 mm headphone jack
• 1x HDMI 2.0b
• 1x Mini DisplayPort 1.4
• 1x SDXC card reader
• 2x Thunderbolt 4
• 6x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A

Moreover, the NUC 12 Extreme has enough space for 30.4 cm-long and 350 W graphics cards. Hence, the machine supports some of NVIDIA's most powerful desktop graphics cards, including the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FE. In saying that, some custom graphics cards will exceed these power and size requirements.

Intel will begin shipping the NUC 12 Extreme from Q2 2022. According to the company's press release, Core i7-12700-powered models will start at US$1,150, while Core i9-12900 versions will cost US$1,450. Please note that these prices do not include graphics cards, RAM or storage. All Alder Lake processors feature onboard graphics, though (UHD Graphics 770 32 EUs).

Purchase the Intel NUC 9 Extreme (NUC9i7QNX) on Amazon