Following the release of the Crimson Canyon NUC Intel has officially launched their Islay Canyon NUC, referring to the new kits as NUC 8 Mainstream-G Mini PCs.
These Mini PCs have a dimension of 4.6″ x 4.4″ x 2″ and pack quite a punch, going up to a Core i7-8565U processor, Optane memory and discrete graphics for gaming and content creation purposes.
For I/O they offer HDMI 2.1, mini Display Port 1.2, three USB 3.1 Type-A ports, a USB 3.1 Type-C port, Gigabit Ethernet and an SDXC card reader.
Unfortunately with Islay Canyon, Intel decided to opt for SODIMM slots which means the RAM won’t be upgradable. Luckily you do get upto 16GB of RAM which is sufficient for most productivity and content creation purposes and definitely overkill for what little gaming it can do.
The discrete GPU being offered here is the low-power AMD Radeon 540X which is the likes of Nvidia’s GeForce MX150 popular among thin and light machines and even though it is no where near what desktop grade Graphics Cards have to offer, its still leagues ahead of Intel’s UHD graphics.
The only customization you’re getting here is the storage which is an M.2 2280 slot with a 2.5 inch drive bay
Here’s a list of all the models that Intel is offering:
- NUC8i7INHJA – Core i7-8565U/16GB Optane/1TB HDD/Win10 Home
- NUC8i7INHPA – Core i7-8565U/256GB SSD/Win10 Home
- NUC8i7INHX (kit) – Core i7/8565U/no storage or OS included
- NUC8i5INHPA – Core i5-8265U/16GB Optane/1TB HDD/Win10 Home
- NUC8i5INHJA – Core i5-8265U/256GB SSD/Win10 Home
- NUC8i5INHX (kit) – Core i5-8265U/no storage or OS included
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