Intel reveals “Bean Canyon” NUCs with Coffee Lake-U CPUs and Iris Plus iGPUs

The new Coffee Lake-U mobility CPUs include the improved Iris Plus 655 iGPU. (Source: Golem.de)

With the new "Bean Canyon" NUCs, Intel will introduce three new Coffee Lake-U CPUs: one dual-core (i3-8109U) and two quad-cores (i5-8259U, i7-8559U). All new CPUs will integrate the improved Iris Plus 655 GPU with 128 eDRAM and 48 execution units for superior mobile graphics processing power. As usual, the NUCs do not include RAM and storage solutions.

by Bogdan Solca, 2018/07/02

Desktop Coffee Lake

Fanless Tech managed to get exclusive info about the new NUCs straight from Intel. The "Bean Canyon" NUCs will feature four new Coffee Lake-U CPUs, which integrate Intel’s Iris Plus GPU. Some of these CPUs have already been spotted in leaked benchmarks, however, Intel just revealed the full CPU roster plus additional info about the NUC kits.

According to Intel’s official slides, the upcoming “Bean Canyon” NUCs will come in 5 distinct kits, featuring three new CPUs. Thus, there will be two entry-level kits based on the Core i3-8109U CPU, two mid-range kits powered by the i5-8259U processor, and a high-end kit coming with the i7-8559U chip. All of these CPUs are rated 28 W TDP and come with 128 MB eDRAM cache for the Iris Plus 655 iGPU, which includes 48 execution units. The i5-8269U CPU that was leaked in February does not appear to be an option for these NUCs. Specs for the new CPUs are as follows:
•   i3-8109U: 2-core/4-thread, 3 GHz base clock (3.7 GHz boost), 4 MB L3 cache
•   i5-8259U: 4-core/8-thread, 2.3 GHz base clock (3.8 GHz boost), 6 MB L3 cache
•   i7-8559U: 4-core/8-thread, 2.7 GHz base clock (4.5 GHz boost), 8 MB L3 cache

Apart from the new Iris Plus GPUs that run at 300 MHz – 1.05 GHz and the usual 2.5-inch SATA 3 bay, the new NUCs also come with several new platform features that include:
•   support for Intel Optane memory
•   Intel 300 Series chipset with enhanced audio and I/O features
•   new Intel Gb Wireless-AC
•   support for USB 3.1 Gen2 connections
•   size: 4.6 x 4.2 x 2 inches (i7 model) or 4.6 x 4.2 x 1.4 inches (i3/i5 models)

Keep in mind the Intel’s NUCs are barebone compact desktop kits that do not include RAM DIMMs and storage solutions. No pricing information was provided as of yet.