Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Intel adds Nvidia RTX gaming power to compact NUC 11 Enthusiast mini PC

 

Intel just injected even more gaming power into its cute, miniature desktop that’s part of its Next Unit of Computing, or NUC, lineup. Unlike the traditional tower that dominates most gaming desktops on the market, Intel’s new NUC 11, introduced at this year’s CES, looks more like an elongated Mac Mini desktop when it rests on its side.

Recommended Videos

The NUC 11 Enthusiast is the successor to the company’s popular Hades Canyon desktop from 2018. Like its predecessor, the NUC 11 Enthusiast retains the compact stature that’s a signature of Intel’s design, though there are plenty of new technology additions. This year, the NUC 11 Enthusiast packs in the company’s latest 11th-Gen processor and comes with discrete Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!

Under the hood, you’re getting a quad-core Intel Core i7-1165G7 CPU. While the reliance on Nvidia’s RTX 2000 series may be disappointing for serious gamers who were expecting a more modern RTX 3000 series graphics card, it’s still impressive that Intel was able to pack that much power and performance into a desktop this size. The NUC 11 Enthusiast is also referred to by its codename of Phantom Canyon, which follows previous models like Hades Canyon, Frost Canyon, and Ghost Canyon.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Along with the new processor, NUC 11 Enthusiast gamers will also benefit from Wi-Fi 6 support, Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a wide array of connectivity ports — including six USB-A ports, HDMI 2.0 port, and a Mini DisplayPort 1.4 port, according to Intel’s product page. Sadly, the new HDMI 2.1 standard didn’t make the cut, so you won’t benefit from using any of the new HDMI 2.1-enabled monitors that debuted at CES.

When you’re not gaming or working on large creative projects, the NUC 11 Enthusiast can also fall back onto Intel’s integrated Xe graphics.

If you’re a gamer looking for a more compact rig than what’s traditionally on the market, the NUC 11 Enthusiast could be a great option. Pricing and availability weren’t immediately available, but according to The Verge, SimplyNUC.com had listed the Phantom Canyon at $1,349 on its website in a configuration with 8GB of RAM and 128GB solid-state drive.

Considering that the Hades Canyon, which was a NUC 8 model, still retails for $1,234 on the site, the updated NUC 11 Enthusiast could be a great value for space-conscious gamers. SimplyNUC’s retail configuration doesn’t include a license for Windows 10, so you’ll have to shell out a little bit more money to get started, which isn’t unusual considering Intel’s strategy with NUCs. SimplyNUC.com also allows buyers to augment the amount of memory and storage with a customized build for an additional cost.

Image credit: Simply NUC Image used with permission by copyright holder

In the past, Intel sold its NUCs as either complete kits that will work out of the box, or as part of a solution for tinkerers where you will have to add your own RAM, storage, and operating system. The latter option adds flexibility to enthusiasts in the segment who may be more willing to customize the parts on their desktop to get the most performance.

In addition to the gaming-centric Phantom Canyon model, Intel also updated its more traditional NUC models, which bears more of a direct resemblance to Apple’s square-shaped Mac Mini. These models got an upgrade to 11th-Gen silicon, up from 10th-Gen from last year, along with Wi-Fi 6 support and Intel Xe integrated graphics on the higher-end Core i5 or Core i7 configurations. Enterprises looking to adopt Intel’s NUC can choose configurations with Intel’s vPro silicon.

Chuong Nguyen
Silicon Valley-based technology reporter and Giants baseball fan who splits his time between Northern California and Southern…
Nvidia won CES 2025, and the RTX 5090 has nothing to do with it
Nvidia CEO Jensen in front of a background.

Great, here's the entitled journalist telling me that the $2,000 graphics card won CES 2025. I've seen plenty of strong opinions about Nvidia's CES announcements online, but even ignoring the bloated price of the new RTX 5090, Nvidia won this year's show. And it kind of won by default. Between Intel's barebones announcements and an overstuffed AMD presentation that ignored what might be AMD's most important GPU launch ever, it's not surprising that Team Green came out ahead.

But that's despite the insane price of the RTX 5090, not because of it.

Read more
Nvidia is giving away the RTX 5090 — here’s how to win
MSI's RTX 5090.

Nvidia's insanely powerful RTX 5090 is right around the corner. Priced at $2,000, the GPU is far from cheap -- but Nvidia is hosting a sweepstakes where you can try your luck at winning one. Here's how to participate and attempt to win Nvidia's best graphics card.

Nvidia has already been giving away some GPUs, as well as a whole custom PC, in the lead-up to the launch of the RTX 50-series. Now that the cards are no longer a secret, the sweepstakes have moved on from the classic GeForce 256 to the GeForce RTX 5090, which is bound to be a beastly card (although perhaps not as beastly as the benchmarks would have you believe).

Read more
Here’s how Nvidia’s CEO defends the RTX 5090’s $2,000 price tag
Nvidia's RTX 5090 sitting at CES 2025.

"When someone would like to have the best, they just go for the best," said Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang in a Q&A session with media at CES 2025. Huang was speaking on the newly-announced RTX 5090, and its new price tag of $2,000, making it the most expensive desktop graphics card Nvidia has ever released.

It's a new high for Nvidia, but also a bold departure from the rest of the range. The next card down in Nvidia's stack, the RTX 5080, comes in at $1,000 -- half the price of the flagship. Huang suggested that customers don't want to deal in micro-segmentation minutia. "$2,000 is not small money, it's fairly high value," Huang said. "But a lot of customers, they just absolutely want the best."

Read more