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You can install a Raptor Lake CPU to your NUC 12 Enthusiast

The Intel NUC for gaming are not a novelty, but it will be in 2022 when they will be launched with hardware entirely from the blue company. In other words, the reason we expect to see the NUC 12 Enthusiast is because they combine an Intel Core 12, Alder Lake-S architecture, with the ARC Alchemist, their first truly gaming GPUs.

One of the disadvantages of AIO desktop systems, whether they have a built-in screen or not, is the fact that they make use of laptop hardware. However, Intel with its next generation of the so-called Next Unit of Computing, but in its variants aimed at gaming, we are going to see a quite important change.

At last LGA socket on NUC 12 Enthusiast

NUC 12 Enthusiast LGA 1700

Intel NUCs have an industrial design that is very reminiscent of a video game console, since like these they integrate all the system hardware mounted on the same PCB and do not accept expansion cards. However, they are usually much more versatile than a console by having the ability to configure elements such as RAM and storage. All this thanks to the use of laptop hardware.

However and as can be seen in the image that accompanies this section, which corresponds to the bare plate and, therefore, without a NUC 12 Enthusiast casing, inside we can see an Intel Core 12 of unknown nature mounted and desk under the LGA 1700 socket. That is, we can install a desktop CPU and even replace it with a better one since it is not soldered to the board like the ones future Raptor Lake. This contrasts with the current model, which uses one of the Tiger Lake family as a CPU that is soldered due to the fact that it does not use any type of socket, but a BGA packaging that is directly soldered to the board.

Limited in CPU options

The fact that the NUC 12 Enthusiast makes use of a desktop processor surprises us, we know that Intel is going to implement an ARC Alchemist inside it, but we believed in the use of the Alder Lake for laptops with a 55 W TPD that had been seen on the notebook processors roadmap. However, this does not mean that we can mount any CPU, as it is rumored that we will be limited by a 330 W power supply, which limits the CPUs we can install.

This will limit our options to Intel’s 35 and 65 W TDP processors, so we may not be able to install a i9-12900K in these systems. Therefore, the ability to place any desktop processor with an LGA1700 socket is limited by the nature of this type of equipment.

Other details of the new Intel gaming NUC

NUC 12 Enthusiast Specifications

In the leaked photograph, we can not only obtain information about the type of processor supported, but also two SO-DIMM memory slots for DDR4 memory up to 64 GB in dual channel. In addition to support for NVMe SSDs for both PCIe Gen 3 and Gen 4.

It is not possible to see the rest of the hardware, however, let’s not forget that the specifications of the NUC Enthusiast 12 were leaked last August and if we stick with it we will have several configurations in terms of the dedicated graphics card. One with 8 GB, another with 12 GB and the most powerful with 16 GB. If we add to this that the processor will not be soldered then we have a large number of different configurations.

So in terms of graphics capacity, they are expected to come with ARC Alchemist GPUs equivalent in power to an RTX 3060, RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070 desktop. Of course, we do not know if the versions of the gaming graphics cards are going to work at a higher clock frequency than their equivalents for gaming laptops.

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