Intel plans to release 6 W Chaco Canyon fanless rugged NUCs

The NUC 8 Rugged is even smaller than your high-end smartphone. (Source: KoolShare)

No larger than a smartphone, the NUC 8 Rugged is powered by refreshed Apollo Lake CPUs with ultra-low-power TDPs of only 6 W. Gaming on these systems is clearly out of the question, as the HD Graphics 500 iGPU is only aimed at IoT applications. It comes with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB eMMC storage. which are both soldered, but users can add an NVMe or SATA SSD through a spare M.2 slot.

Bogdan Solca, 09/10/2019

Intel has been focusing on launching more powerful NUCs that are supposed to be decent replacements for gaming PCs lately, but low-power IoT variants are still planned for the foreseeable future, at least based on reports and reviews provided by KoolShare forum users. One such ultra-low-power variant appears to be the yet-to-be-announced NUC 8 Rugged that is codenamed Chaco Canyon.

Even though it is not yet official, the NUC 8 Rugged seems to already be available in China with a NUC8CHK product code. Since it is rated for 6W TDP, this model is powered by a refreshed Apollo Lake Celeron N3350E dual-core / dual-thread CPU that comes with an HD Graphics 500 iGPU, so gaming is out of the question. It is equipped with 4 GB of LPDDR3 RAM and 64 GB of eMMC storage. Unfortunately these are both soldered, but Intel does provide an M.2 2280 Key-M slot for NVMe or SATA SSD upgrades.

Other key features include:

Rugged fanless plastic case measuring only 154 x 108 x 32 mm for a total weight of 545.7 g
GbE NIC with jack + Wi-Fi card
2x USB 3.0 and 2x USB 2.0 ports plus 1x USB 3.0 and 2x USB 2.0 internal headers
Dual HDMI outs (1.4 + 2.0)
Serial port header
Audio jack

The fact that Intel already uploaded the chipset drivers for this model on its official site should offer a clue about its imminent availability. TigerDirect has the NUC 8 Rugged listed for US$247.99, but it is not yet in stock.