Intel's Next NUC Could Feature Respectable Graphics Performance

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Get ready to game on a NUC?

Pint sized PCs are a thing now. Not that they weren't before, but with increasingly faster and energy efficient hardware coming out of Santa Clara, little boxes like the NUC (Next Unit of Computing) are fast becoming viable candidates for primary PC duties. That's especially true of Intel's fastest NUC yet, the forthcoming NUC5i7RYH equipped with a 5th Generation Intel Core i7 5557U processor.
The chip is a Broadwell part that will power Intel's NUC 2.0 models, otherwise known as Rock Canyon, based on the literature FanlessTech got its hands on. It's a dual-core part clocked at 3.1GHz to 3.4GHz with 4MB of cache and a 28W TDP. The real treat, however, is the integrated Intel Iris Graphics 6100, which Intel says will make its upcoming NUC "perfect for immersive gaming and applications that leverage the GPU."
That's a bit of marketing fluff, though the Iris 6100 should prove capable of respectable gaming performance, depending on the title, resolution, and settings. The 6100 is the fastest GPU Broadwell currently has to offer, with 48 execution units, a 300MHz to 1,100MHz frequency, and L4 eDRAM cache. We've seen claims that it should be slightly faster than a GeForce GTX 820M.
The NUC5i7RYH will also support up to 16GB of DDR3-1866 RAM and feature four USB 3.0 ports, internal support for an M.2 SSD card, internal SATA 6Gbps for a 2.5-inch drive, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, mini HDMI 1.4a and mini DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, and a few other bullet points.
No word yet on when exactly the new NUC will come out or how much it will cost.
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