Intel Officially Launches Baby Canyon NUCs with Kaby Lake: Thunderbolt Makes a Re-entry
by Ganesh T S on January 17, 2017 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
- Systems
- Intel
- HTPC
- NUC
- Thunderbolt 3
- Kaby Lake
- CES 2017
The Baby Canyon NUCs were leaked in July 2016, and Intel officially launched the units at CES 2017. The first-generation NUCs based on Ivy Bridge had a SKU with Thunderbolt support. However, Thunderbolt went missing till it came back in the Skull Canyon NUC (NUC6i7KYK) last year. The Alpine Ridge controller for Thunderbolt 3 also integrates a USB 3.1 Gen 2 controller, making the Type-C Thunderbolt 3 port quite versatile. The Baby Canyon NUCs bring Thunderbolt back into the UCFF NUC form-factor. All the Baby Canyon NUCs have the Alpine Ridge controller. However, the i3 model is limited by firmware, allowing the Type-C port to support only USB 3.1 Gen 2 and Display Port 1.2. The i7 and i5 models have full Thunderbolt 3 support.
The leaked specifications we wrote about in July were more or less accurate, and the official specifications allow us to fill in some of the missing blanks. The updated table is presented below. SKUs ending with K are units that do not support a 2.5" drive (only M.2 SSDs are supported).
Intel Baby Canyon NUC PCs | |||||
NUC7i7BNH | NUC7i5BNH | NUC7i5BNK | NUC7i3BNH | NUC7i3BNK | |
CPU | Core i7-7567U 2C/4T 28 W TDP |
Core i5-7260U 2C/4T 15 W TDP |
Core i3-7100U 2C/4T 15 W TDP |
||
Graphics | Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 | Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 | Intel HD Graphics 620 | ||
PCH | Intel Sunrise Point-LP for Kaby Lake-U | ||||
Memory | Two SO-DIMM slots, up to 32 GB of DDR4-2133 | ||||
2.5" bay | 1x2.5"/9.5mm bay, SATA3 | None | 1x2.5"/9.5 mm bay, SATA3 | None | |
M.2 Slot | Up to M.2-2280 SSD with SATA3 or PCIe 3.0 x4 interface | ||||
Wi-Fi/BT | Soldered-down Intel Wireless-AC 8265 (802.11ac 2x2 + BT 4.2) with WiDi support | ||||
Ethernet | Intel I219V Gigabit Ethernet controller | ||||
Display Outputs | DisplayPort 1.2 via USB-C connector HDMI 2.0 |
||||
Audio | 3.5 mm TRRS audio jack 7.1 channel audio output via HDMI or DP |
||||
Thunderbolt & USB-C |
1x Thunderbolt 3 Type-C (40 Gbps) (USB 3.1 Gen 2 and Display Port functionality included) | 1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C (with Display Port functionality included) | |||
USB | 4 USB 3.0 Type-A (5 Gbps), one with charging | ||||
Other I/O | MicroSDXC card reader with UHS-I support One infrared receiver |
||||
Size (mm) | 115 × 111 × 51 | 115 × 111 × 31 | 115 × 111 × 51 | 115 × 111 × 31 | |
PSU | External, 65 W | ||||
OS | Compatible with Windows 7/8.1/10 | ||||
Product Page | NUC7i7BNH Specifications | NUC7i5BNH Specifications | NUC7i5BNK Specifications | NUC7i3BNH Specifications | NUC7i3BNK Specifications |
In terms of appearance, the chassis sides now have a shade of gray to provide a better look when seen along with the black lid. We have a micro-SDXC slot on the side (a full-sized SDXC slot couldn't apparently work with their thermal design). In terms of performance, Kaby Lake should provide the claimed 7 - 11% improvement over the corresponding Skylake products. The new NUCs are also Optane-ready - allowing Optane M.2 SSDs to work seamlessly in conjunction with 2.5" hard drives in the future (when the Optane SSDs come into the market). One important thing to note here is that the i7 model uses a 28W TDP SKU (the Core i7-7567U), compared to the 15W TDP SKUs used in the i3 and i5 models. The i7 and i5 models have Iris Plus graphics with 64MB of eDRAM. None of the Baby Canyon NUCs support vPro. HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 is supported, thanks to the inclusion of a LSPCon in the BOM. This should make the units into perfect HTPCs with Netflix 4K capability. Compared to the NUCs from the last few generations, these units are not a big upgrade in terms of unique features for other use-cases. Generally speaking, we are not convinced that the Optane-ready feature is a big enough reason to upgrade to the Baby Canyon NUCs. That said, the i7 model should prove pretty interesting to compare against the Broadwell-U Iris NUC.
The NUC7i3BNH with the neutered Alpine Ridge Controller
(Note that the Type-C port only carries the SS10 / DP logos)
Intel indicated that the kits are slated to come into the market over the next few months at price points similar to the current Skylake versions. While official MSRPs were not provided, we see the NUC7i7BNH for pre-order at $700, the NUC7i5BNH at $610, and the NUC7i3BNH at $496.
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dullard - Tuesday, January 17, 2017 - link
The power brick size does not matter for of the relevant use cases.1) Imagine placing it under your TV or monitor in the gap from the supporting surface to the bottom of the display.
2) Imagine mounting it on the back of your TV/monitor.
In neither case does the power brick size really matter as that area is behind the TV/monitor and out of sight. All that matters is that it can sneak into that narrow space.
dullard - Tuesday, January 17, 2017 - link
for MANY of the1_rick - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link
I carry a Skull Canyon back and forth to work every day. The brick is huge, but it's pretty light. YMMV but it doesn't bother me at all.CaedenV - Tuesday, January 17, 2017 - link
Ya... that is one large disappointment. I keep hoping for PoE versions, or cheap universal USB-C chargers to come out for these things, but nothing yet :(Also keep hoping to see fanless designs, and nothing there either.
nowayandnohow - Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - link
I honestly think a usb-C charger would cost you more than a no-name replacement brick for something like this. They run on like 19v and a few amps, power bricks for that are dime a dozen.nowayandnohow - Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - link
What argument is this anyways? External powerbrick makes it way easier to work with these small machines - and adding an internal brick just increases weight, size and ads another point of failure in a machine that is supposed to just work. This is a laptop without a screen or keyboard, and they all comes with bricks unless you want to add 1lbs to the weight and another few inches.skiboysteve - Tuesday, January 17, 2017 - link
I wish they published the multimonitor count and display resolution supportedskiboysteve - Tuesday, January 17, 2017 - link
And they really should support higher than DP 1.2 by this point.weilin - Tuesday, January 17, 2017 - link
That would be nice but we have to be realistic... Skylake/KabyLake only native supports DP 1.2 and HDMI 1.4. Falon Ridge adds USB 3.1, TB, and HDMI 2.0. Intel doesn't have anything this generation to support anything better. Also, DP 1.2 already supports UDH at 60Hz. The Immediate need to support higher resolutions isn't essential right this moment.weilin - Tuesday, January 17, 2017 - link
UDH -> UHD