Intel NUC 12 Serpent Canyon: Mini PC comes with Intel Arc A770M

Powerful hardware in a compact, stationary case. This is what the new Intel NUC 12 Serpent Canyon Mini-PC promises. It combines a current Core i7-12700H processor with the new high-end mobile GPU from Intel, namely the Intel Arc A770M.

Intel NUC 12 Serpent Canyon: Mini-PC with a powerful update

At least in China, the new generation of compact NUC mini-PCs shows itself in detail. The new Intel NUC 12 Serpent Canyon is supposed to succeed the 11 model with the epithet Phantom Canyon and comes with some exciting improvements, as the presentation on Baidu reveals.

On the one hand, Intel uses a new Alder Lake CPU in the form of the Intel Core i7-12700H with six performance and eight efficiency cores. On the other hand, the Nvidia graphics unit (RTX 2060 in the NUC 11) is replaced by the new Intel Arc Mobile top model A770M.

The Mobile GPU relies on 32 Xe cores, 4,096 shaders, 16 GB of GDDR6 RAM and a maximum 256-bit memory interface. 32 ray tracing units and a clock frequency of 1,650 MHz already attest the Intel NUC 12 very good properties in gaming use, at least on paper.

The Intel Arc A770M is allowed to treat itself to 120 to 150 watts of power (TDP). However, it is still not entirely clear how powerful the chip will ultimately be after several postponements. The same mobile GPU will also be used in the gaming notebook Clevo X270.

Compact high-end computer

Visually, the Intel NUC 12 Serpent Canyon relies on the skull on the case that is characteristic for the series, which turns out to be correspondingly compact with a volume of 2.5 liters. Unfortunately, concrete details about the installed working and system memory are not yet available.

However, the NUC 12 offers two USB Type-C ports including Thunderbolt 4, one HDMI 2.1 port, two DisplayPort 2.0 ports, and six USB-A ports (USB 3.2 Gen 2 with 10 Gbit/s). 2.5 GBit Ethernet and 3.5 mm jack, as well as an SD card reader with UHS II support.

In order to dissipate the corresponding heat, the new Intel Mini-PC has holes around the case, as well as an additional, extra-large grille at the back. With the help of the stand, the NUC 12 can also be placed vertically on the desk or other surfaces.

Prices and availability

When and at what prices the new Intel NUC 12 Serpent Canyon mini-PC will be available is currently unknown. The official unveiling on the part of Intel is currently still pending. The predecessor model, Intel NUC 11 Enthusiast, with Core i7-1165G7 and GeForce RTX 2060 is currently available for around 1,200 Euros.