Intel preps NUC Extreme with a GPU from a third party (NVIDIA)

Okay first off, it's a rumor, secondly, if true .. weird? You have all the brains in-house to create a proper IGP, I mean the Xe team should be able to power a NUC right? But a new roadmap indicates that Intel will release a successor to the Hades Canyon NUC at the end of this year. based on Tiger Lake-U with thus third-party graphics.

The roadmap was spread on twitter by @momomo_us, the NUC Extreme would be released at the end of 2020. Intel would provide the PC with Core i5s and Core i7s with the 10nm+ Tiger Lake-U. Tiger Lake CPUs are to receive an Xe GPU. Xe is Intel's new GPU architecture that should bring significant performance improvements over Intel's current graphics architecture and will also be used for standalone video cards. But as it seems, an extra GPU will be added.

In the past, Intel has used AMD for their graphics solutions (AMD Vega RX M), but since all key staff shortly thereafter suddenly were working for Intel, it seems the turn this round goes to NVIDIA. The NVIDIA part is the rumor bit really, but last year some slides have been indicating that for the GTX 1660 Ti and the RTX 2060. 

The slides also indicate that Dawson Canyon's end-of-life prognosis will be postponed to the end of 2020 and therefore coexist with the new Quartz Canyon series. Quartz Canyon is also aimed at professionals and has Coffee Lake-HR series i7 vPro chips. That NUC 9 Pros would get a pcie x16 slot, according to the leaked slide.

The 'regular' nuc's will continue to exist in the Frost Canyon series, this year with new Comet Lake-U chips. The Compute Element products, according to the slides with mainstream West Cove, more powerful Ghost Canyon and professional Quartz Canyon series, are also getting an update with Comet Lake-H chips. A series called 'Austin Bay' would get more power-friendly Comet Lake-U chips.

Phew, that's a lot of canyons.