Intel unveils its all-new NUC 12 Extreme, a small racing beast boosted at Alder Lake and much fiercer than its measurements suggest.
Intel has just unveiled the new spearhead of its line of NUC minicomputers. These small machines have made a place for themselves for their volume / power ratio almost incomparable on the market, unless you have recourse to tailor-made solutions. And this new Intel NUC 12 Extreme Compute Element Kit promises to set the bar even higher.
We discover a real furious beast compared to its very small measurements. With the Extreme Kit, Intel offers a new low-volume modular chassis (18.8 x 17.8 x 12 cm). And the founder has again managed to slip in very high-end components. In particular, the blue team has made no concessions at the CPU level.
From premium Alder Lake to the menu
Indeed, the most expensive version of this NUC 12 Extreme is entitled to a Core processor i9-12900 12th generation exploding. This is a chip capable of reaching 5.1 GHz (overclocked) on all of its 12 cores (8 P-Cores and 8 E-Cores for 24 threads). Suffice to say that future owners should have no concern for raw performance at this level.
And it should not consume excessively knowing that it is a slightly less greedy version than the i9-12900K. The TDP of the latter reaches 125 W; the version present in the NUC will be satisfied with a more reasonable TDP of 65 W. Note that there is also a more modest version (all things considered) equipped with an i7-12700. On the other hand, no i5 version seems to be on the program.
Modularity synonymous with freedom
As always in the case of NUCs, it will be necessary to deal with the absence of a dedicated graphics card by default. We also note that the Iris Xe graphics platform is conspicuous by its absence. A bit surprising knowing that it has really made a good impression since its release.
On the other hand, the chipset Intel UHD Graphics 770 who replaces him should still be relatively capable at this level; it supports DX 12 and should hold up in a few light applications. You should not hope to play at 1920 x 1080 or more in very good conditions, but it will be sufficient for less demanding use in terms of rendering.
To overcome this limit, you will need to invest in a dedicated graphics card. This is a scenario that was obviously anticipated by Intel’s troops. It will be possible to add your own graphics card PCIe Gen3, PCIe Gen 4 or even PCIe Gen5 x16 to transform this featherweight into a real war machine.
Be careful, however, when choosing the graphics card model. In fact, the SFX power supply integrated in the case delivers “only” 650W, which could prove to be a bit tight when pushing a very high-end GPU to its limits.
No DDR5, but superb connectivity
On the other hand, one cannot help noticing an extremely curious black point. Despite its very high-end positioning, this NUC 12 Extreme has to make do with RAM DDR4 clocked at a maximum frequency of 3200Hz. Surprising knowing that there are much faster modules and that DDR5 is starting to knock on the door. In terms of storage, there are three M.2 SSD slots (Type-2280, PCIe Gen 4×4).
The NUC 12 Extreme Kit is doing very well in terms of connectivity. At the front, there is at least the bare necessities with two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (one Type-A and one Type-C) as well as a full-size SD card reader and a 3.5mm jack. But it is at the rear that the machine is illustrated; there are no less than six USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports as well as two Thunderbolt ports and a full-size HDMI 2.0b socket. On the network side, the machine is entitled to an Ethernet socket compatible with 10 Gbps and the Wi-Fi 6E AX211 standard.
This small machine with highly developed predatory instincts and incredibly modular for its size will be available from 2nd quarter 2022. According to SlashGear, it will launch in its base version between 1028€ and 1300€. But it will probably take a net additional cost to equip it as you wish
