Intel crams its freshly baked seventh-gen CPUs into five new NUC mini PCs

Now that Intel’s second-wave “Kaby Lake” CPU assault is officially out of the bag, the company has introduced new miniature PCs based on those freshly baked seventh-generation processors. There are five units in all, two of which rely on a Core i3 processor, two that use a Core i5 processor, and one containing a Core i7 chip. Even more, the i5 and i7 models include Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, whereas the i3 models provide a USB 3.1 Type-C port.

With the Core i3 and i5 models, the only difference between the two “BNK” and “BNH” models is that the latter unit is slightly larger to include an additional SATA 3 port for a 2.5-inch hard drive or solid state drive measuring up to 9.5 mm thick. By default, both the BNK and BNH units provide an M.2 SSD slot for SATA 3 or PCIe x4 Gen 3 NVMe or AHCI SSDs that play host to the operating system installed by the user. The Core i7 unit automatically comes with both storage connections.

NUC7i3

For starters, this model packs an Intel Core i3-7100U with a base clock speed of 2.40GHz. It relies on Intel’s integrated HD Graphics 620 component, which is capable of cranking out a 3840 x 2160 resolution through its HDMI 2.0 or USB 3.1 Type-C ports. Other notable features include a handful of USB 3.0 ports, Wireless AC and Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity, wired gigabit networking, and 7.1 Surround Sound capabilities.

NUC7i5

As the name indicates, these units are based on a Core i5-7260U processor with a base clock speed of 2.2GHz and a boost clock speed of 3.4Ghz. It’s identical to the Core i3 model save for tossing out the USB 3.1 Type-C port for a Thunderbolt 3 Type-C port. This port enables transfer speeds of up to 40 gigabits per second whereas USB 3.1 only moves at 10 gigabits per second.

Another difference is that this model relies on an integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 component as opposed to the NUC7i3’s Intel HD Graphics 620 component. The Iris Plus Graphics 640 has a base clock speed of 300MHz and a turbo speed of 950MHz whereas the Graphics 620 has a base clock speed of 300MHz and a boost clock speed of 1,000MHz.

The Core i5-7260U is actually the slower chip of the new “U” Core i5 processors Intel just revealed. It follows the Core i5-7360U with a base clock speed of 2.3GHz and a boost clock speed of 3.6GHz. That speedier chip relies on the Iris Plus Graphics 640 component too, only it’s clocked slightly faster at a base speed of 300MHz and a boost speed of 1,000MHz.

NUC7i7

There’s only one unit offered here: the NUC7i7BNH. It relies on Intel’s Core i7-7567U with a base clock speed of 3.5GHz and a boost clock speed of 4.0GHz. This is the fastest chip in Intel’s new “U” seventh-generation Core processor lineup on a computing level, but not the fastest regarding to the integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 component. All five of the new “U” Core i7 processors have a base graphics clock speed of 300MHz. However, the i7-7567U has a boost clock speed of 1,100MHz while the i7-7600U tops at 1,150Mhz, the highest on the list. We know — it’s not much of a difference.

Outside the CPU and graphics aspect, the NUC7i7 is identical to the NUC7i5BNH model sporting the extra SATA 3 connector for a 2.5-inch hard drive or SSD, a Thunderbolt 3 port, a handful of USB 3.0 ports, and more. As with all the other models listed above, customers are required to supply their own memory and storage devices on top of purchasing these “bare-bone” units. Intel believes that customers will see “great” gaming with these mini PCs, but without a discrete graphics chip from AMD or Nvidia, customers may want to shy away from high-resolutions and visually intense titles.

Now, just as a refresher, here is the list of seventh-generation “Kaby Lake-U” processors from Intel revealed this week: