Compact and Powerful: Is Intel's NUC Serpent Canyon the Best PC Solution?

Based on the pursuit of a desktop environment, more and more users are now looking for mini hosts. Compared to conventional hosts, mini hosts are smaller and take up less space on the desktop, but due to the limitations of the chassis size, mini hosts generally do not have strong gaming performance or high-end processing capabilities, and can only meet users’ daily office and entertainment needs.

So the question arises, is there a mini host on the market that has strong performance? Although the ITX industry has been developing rapidly in the past two years, for most non-DIY players, if you really want to pursue the best of both worlds of small size and high performance, the Intel NUC series products are actually a better choice, and it is not surprising to call it a representative of high-performance mini hosts.

In mid-September 2022, Intel released the new NUC 12 Enthusiast performance version kit, codenamed Serpent Canyon. This product is positioned similarly to the previous generation “Phantom Canyon”; although its positioning is slightly lower than the NUC 12 Extreme (Dragon Canyon) released in June, its overall integration is higher, and the body is more mini, and it is the first to adopt a truly “3I platform”, making people very much looking forward to its performance.

(Image Source: Intel Official Website)

Recently, Lei Technology got this new NUC product. How does the legendary “3I platform” perform?As a niche product, is the Intel NUC 12 Serpent Canyon worth buying for non-DIY players? Let’s explore through this review.

Minor Updates, Major Upgrades

As Intel’s main consumer hardware product line, the packaging of NUC mini hosts has always been eye-catching, and this time is no exception. The NUC 12 Enthusiast “Serpent Canyon” we have in hand features a diamond-shaped three-dimensional packaging box, with the words “intel nuc” printed on the front, snake scale decorative stripes on the side, and a “intel ARC” graphics card nameplate affixed near the bottom, making the overall packaging creativity impressive.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

Gently pulling the top edge of the box to the left and right reveals the body of the Serpent Canyon. Although regarded as the successor to the Pluto Canyon and Phantom Canyon, the Serpent Canyon does not adopt the same appearance design as its predecessors; instead, while maintaining the sharp hexagonal design, the chassis has been enlarged, increasing the chassis capacity from 1.3L to 2.5L.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

Like previous NUC products, the Serpent Canyon supports both vertical and horizontal placement; users can either lay it flat on the table or use the included stand to achieve vertical placement. When placed vertically, the machine can achieve airflow from the top and sides, and when placed horizontally, the machine can also use the rubber feet on the right side panel to elevate itself, enhancing the machine’s cooling capacity and preventing the interior from becoming a “sealed can”.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

Now let’s take a look at the ports; the front of the Serpent Canyon features not only an eye-catching hexagonal power button, but also an SDXC card reader, a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and two USB 3.2 Type-A ports; the back of the machine boasts up to four USB 3.2 Type-A ports, a 2.5Gb RJ45 port, a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port, a 3.5mm audio jack, an HDMI 2.1 port, and two DP 2.0 ports.

From the port configuration, the Serpent Canyon has a rich array of ports; the two Thunderbolt 4 ports not only provide ultra-fast data transfer but can also work with the HDMI 2.1 and DP 2.0 ports to achieve multi-screen office with up to five screens, meeting various expansion needs for users.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

Moving on to the disassembly phase, the Serpent Canyon’s disassembly is simple and convenient; you only need to remove six screws from the side panel to open it. The first thing that catches the eye is a backlight board; this time, the Serpent Canyon comes with two etched card designs, a classic skull and a new serpent head; simply placing one on the backlight board will display the corresponding backlight pattern upon booting, as cool as ever.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

Removing the light board fixture reveals the entire machine’s interior. This time, the Serpent Canyon is equipped with an Intel Killer AX1690 wireless card, supporting both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, and Intel has also prepared a control center application for this new wireless card, underscoring its importance.In addition to the included SSD, the motherboard also has two M.2 slots, supporting up to three NVMe SSDs.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

Finally, to maximize space compression, the Serpent Canyon also adopts an external power supply solution. This power supply is manufactured by Lite-On, with specifications of 19.6V/16.8A and a maximum output power of 330W.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

Launching the “3I” Platform

In my opinion, the core competitiveness of the Serpent Canyon lies in two aspects. Aside from the highly integrated chassis design, it is also the first mini host on the market to integrate Intel’s processor and discrete graphics card into the “3I platform”. As Brian McCarson, general manager of Intel’s NUC division, stated: “The Intel NUC 12 Enthusiast mini host kit is one of the most exciting NUC products Intel has ever created.”

As the first 3I platform NUC, the Serpent Canyon is equipped with an Intel 12th Gen Core i7-12700H standard pressure processor and Intel’s Arc A770M discrete graphics card. The review model we have is configured with 2×8GB DDR4-3200 memory and a 500GB PCIe 4.0 SSD, with the overall configuration as follows:

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

As the flagship product in Intel’s 12th Gen mobile processors, the i7-12700H specifications are already familiar to everyone. This processor adopts the latest Intel 7 manufacturing process, with 14 cores and 20 threads, including 6 performance cores (P-Core) with a maximum turbo frequency of 4.7GHz, and 8 efficiency cores (E-Core) with a maximum turbo frequency of 3.5GHz, and a third-level cache of 24MB.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

In the CPU-Z performance test standards, this machine scores 729.8 points in single-core and 7783.7 points in multi-core, with R20 tests at 669cb/6167cb and R23 tests at 1774cb/16361cb. Compared to the previous generation products equipped with the 11th Gen Core flagship processor, the i7-12700H processor has improved single-core performance by at least 15%, and multi-core performance has increased by 30%, allowing the Serpent Canyon to effectively unleash the performance of this processor.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

In the CrossMark comprehensive score test, the Serpent Canyon achieved a good score of 1711, including a productivity score of 1640, creativity score of 1833, and responsiveness score of 1582.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

V-Ray is one of the most popular rendering engines in the industry, and the V-Ray Benchmark is a free standalone rendering speed testing software launched by its developer, Chaos Group, which can be used to test the rendering speed of computers using the V-Ray 5 engine. The CPU rendering test score of the Serpent Canyon was 10972vsamples, ranking among the best in the official database.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

Of course, what more people care about is the performance of the Arc A770M discrete graphics card. As Intel’s most powerful mobile GPU, the Arc A770M is built on TSMC’s 6nm process, with 32 Xe-cores, 16GB GDDR6 memory, 256-bit bus width, a total bandwidth of 512GB/s, core frequency of 2050MHz, memory frequency of 2000MHz, and a maximum performance release of 120W.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

In the 3DMark FireStrike Extreme (2K rendering) test, the Arc A770M scored 13005 points, with a maximum core temperature of 60°C and a maximum core operating frequency of 1900MHz.

In the 3DMark FireStrike Ultra (4K rendering) test, the Arc A770M scored 5967 points, with a maximum core temperature of 66°C and a maximum core operating frequency of 1950MHz.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

In the 3DMark Time Spy (2K rendering) test, the Arc A770M scored 10913 points, with a maximum core temperature of 64°C and a maximum core operating frequency of 2050MHz.

In the 3DMark Time Spy Extreme (4K rendering) test, the Arc A770M scored 5249 points, with a maximum core temperature of 67°C and a maximum core operating frequency of 2050MHz.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

From the actual measurements, the performance of the Arc A770M is higher than that of the RTX 3060 discrete graphics card in the 140W full-blood version, making its actual performance very promising.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

In terms of memory, the Serpent Canyon we have features 2*8GB SO-DIMM DDR4 3200MHz memory, with no additional memory slots provided. Using AIDA64 for memory cache testing, the read speed is measured at 49649MB/s, write speed at 46925MB/s, and latency at 95.9ns, which is quite impressive.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

In terms of storage, the Serpent Canyon we have is equipped with a 500GB PCIe 4.0 SSD, with SSD read speeds reaching 7025.66MB/s and write speeds reaching 3926.87MB/s, which is also outstanding among SSDs of the same specifications, significantly reducing loading times for AAA games and fully meeting the high-speed requirements for daily loading and file transfers.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

Promising Gaming Experience Ahead

Entering the gaming test phase, we will test the performance of games at ultra-high quality under 1080P or 2K resolution.

1. Horizon: Zero Dawn

As a representative of Sony’s recent game porting to the PC platform, we can use “Horizon: Zero Dawn” to measure the A770M’s friendliness towards Sony’s ported games. At 2K resolution and maximum quality settings, the Serpent Canyon achieves an average frame rate of 60 frames while running “Horizon: Zero Dawn”, allowing for smooth gameplay, which is quite impressive.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

2. CS:GO

As an esports game, the frame rate of “CS:GO” is always the priority for players; thus, we focused on testing the game frame rates at 1080P, both at high and low graphics settings. The Serpent Canyon achieves an average frame rate of 328.09 frames in low graphics settings at 1080P, and 292.57 frames in high graphics settings, allowing for smooth operation without any pressure.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

3. Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Not only does it cater to both Windows and Mac ecosystems, but it is also particularly proactive in adapting to new features from manufacturers, making “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” a regular in game testing. The actual test shows an average frame rate of 100 frames at 1080P resolution and 82 frames at 2K resolution, indicating that the Serpent Canyon can run this game smoothly at regular resolutions.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

Additionally, “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” is among the first batch of games to support Intel’s Xess technology.Xess is essentially Intel’s exclusive supersampling technology, which can be considered conceptually similar to AMD’s FSR 2.0 and Nvidia’s DLSS 2.0.We enabled Xess’s “Super Performance” setting at 2K resolution and maximum quality to see the improvement in frame rates brought by this technology.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

As shown in the image, Xess can bring nearly a 30% increase in frame rates at 2K resolution. Most importantly, when enabling ray tracing + Xess simultaneously, users can achieve a near 60FPS gaming experience at 2K with ray tracing, which is quite remarkable.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

4. Borderlands 3

“Borderlands 3” is one of the few AAA single-player shooting games in recent years, which can reflect the optimization level of the A770M in new games. The actual test shows an average frame rate of 80 frames at 1080P resolution and 54 frames at 2K resolution. Thanks to Intel’s special optimizations for DX12, the Serpent Canyon performs exceptionally well in new games, and future gaming performance is very promising.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

Cooling Performance Worth Mentioning

Lastly, let’s take a look at the cooling capability of the Serpent Canyon. As shown in the image, after running FPU stress tests for 10 minutes, it can be seen that the CPU frequency stabilizes around 3.1GHz, with CPU power consumption maintained at around 72W, and the overall temperature of the machine around 85°C.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

During the maximum stress test with dual components, the CPU can stabilize around 3.0GHz, with CPU power consumption maintained at around 55W, temperature fixed at around 88°C, while the GPU power consumption remains at around 100W, with a temperature of 86°C, demonstrating considerable performance release.

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

Overall, thanks to the reasonable cooling design, the cooling performance of the Serpent Canyon is quite impressive. Notably, the fan speed only increases momentarily at the start of the stress test, after which the fan stabilizes at a relatively quiet speed while maintaining a good performance release level. This creates a relatively quiet usage environment, which is one of the advantages of NUC compared to laptops.

Conclusion: Small Size, Big Energy

Pros:

1. Small size with high expandability;

2. Outstanding hardware configuration;

3. Exquisite chassis craftsmanship;

Cons:

1. Graphics card drivers still have optimization space;

(Image Source: Lei Technology)

As the latest product in Intel’s NUC mini computer line, the Serpent Canyon clearly incorporates a lot of technology and design. The performance of this product can prove that NUC products based on Intel processors and Intel graphics cards have matured enough, and the “3I” platform can provide users with an excellent comprehensive performance experience, bringing new choices to consumers.

In my opinion, whether for gamers and content creators who want a clean desktop, strong expandability, sufficient performance, and worry-free usage, or for college students who have relatively fixed usage locations but lack enough desktop space, the NUC 12 Serpent Canyon is a choice worth considering: it offers cooling and performance that surpasses ordinary laptops, all in an extremely portable small size. Of course, if you don’t mind taking up space, then you might get a more powerful conventional desktop computer within the same budget.

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