Intel plans to release Tiger Lake-powered NUCs codenamed Tiger Canyon

Intel’s Tiger Lake CPUs with the new Xe iGPU are primarily designed for laptop systems, and initial test results show marginal performance gains over the Renoir-U competition from AMD. However, if you are not willing to shell out $1,000+ for a laptop upgrade, Intel is also preparing more decently-priced NUC mini PCs codenamed Tiger Canyon featuring the new CPUs, and users can choose from complete NUC systems, kits or board-only SKUs, depending on the budget.

The Intel NUC 11 Pro Tiger Canyon spec sheet is provided by Twitter user 9550pro. This sheet is missing motherboard information, availability and pricing, but we still get a good picture of what to expect from the upcoming NUCs. First off, there are “Tall H” (117x112x54mm) and “slim K” (117x112x37mm) chassis options that have different port selections. Furthermore, the  CPU option list is quite varied and includes the following Core models:

• i3-1115G4 dual-core/quad-thread with 1.9 GHz base clock and 4.1 GHz boost
• i5-1135G7 quad-core/octa-thread with 2.4 GHz base clock and 4.2 GHz boost
• i5-1145G7 vPro quad-core/octa-thread with 2.6 GHz base clock and 4.4 GHz boost
• i7-1165G7 quad-core/octa-thread with 2.8 GHz base clock and 4.7 GHz boost
• i7-1185G7 vPro quad-core/octa-thread with 3.0 GHz base clock and 4.8 GHz boost

The i3 CPU is the only one not featuring the new Xe-LP iGPU, as it is integrating a slower UHD Graphics chip. Nevertheless, all Tiger Lake CPUs support up to four display outputs via 2x HDMI connectors (1x HDMI 2.1 + 1x HDMI 2.0b) and 2x Thunderbolt 4 ports supporting DisplayPort connections or USB 3.2 Gen 2 data transfer protocols. Maximum support RAM capacity is 64 GB via 2x SODIMM slots supporting DDR4-3200 specs.

Storage is handled via 1x M.2 2280 key M slot supporting PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSDs and an M.2 2242 key B slot for PCIe Gen 3 x1 SATA SSD solutions. The taller chassis version gets dual 2.5 Gb Ethernet connections plus 3x USB 2.0 ports, while the slim version gets only one 2.5 Gb Ethernet jack and 1x USB 2.0 port, but both versions feature Wi-Fi 6 via an M.2 module. The default port selection also includes 2x front and 1x rear USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, plus a USB-A 2.0 rear connector. Unfortunately, there are no audio jacks, as the audio signals are only allowed through the HDMI or DP connections.