Intel is spending valuable time bringing its first generation Arc desktop graphics cards to market. But while we wait, Intel is doing something with its Arc laptop GPUs. They are now appearing in the company’s popular NUC mini PCs, integrated with the latest 12th generation Alder Lake CPUs. The new “Serpent Canyon” gaming NUC kit upgrades the NUC with the Arc A770M graphics card, offering some powerful appeal compared to previous NUCs based on Intel Iris GPUs.

The brand new NUC12SNKi7 Full is built around the Intel Core i7-12700H high-end laptop CPU, featuring 14 cores and a maximum clock speed of 4.7GHz. (The NUC series uses laptop-style CPUs and motherboards, which makes them a fraction of the size of standard desktop PCs.) The base model comes with the built-in Arc A770M GPU, marking Intel’s first time being able to include its own GPU in the enthusiast series of standalone GPUs. Previous NUC designs either stuck with integrated graphics or used AMD hardware, or adopted larger sizes to accommodate desktop-style PCIe expansion slots for full-size graphics cards.

Amazing Performance, Amazing Size

The Intel NUC 12 Enthusiast Serpent Canyon is hitting the gaming space hard. With its 12th generation i7-12700H processor and the popular Intel® Arc™ A770M graphics card, Serpent is equipped with cutting-edge gear from Intel’s arsenal, capable of handling the latest and greatest AAA games and high-quality VR content. Enjoy a smoother gaming experience with the new Intel® thread controller directing your workloads to the best cores for each process, reserving performance cores for more intense processes like gaming and streaming, while your efficient cores handle background processes for smoother gameplay. Put it in your backpack and game anywhere – just 2.5 liters, stunning.

Unboxing Highlights

The entire chassis is designed to be hexagonal, allowing it to be placed upright with a stand, or horizontally. When upright, the right side panel is embedded with four rubber feet, and when placed horizontally, the unit has a certain space from the desktop to avoid wear while also aiding in heat dissipation.

The package includes the main unit, adapter, base, acrylic whiteboard, and two screws.

I will skip the installation process and go straight to testing; my conditions are limited, with only 8G 3200 RAM and 1T SSD installed.

This time, the network card is not the familiar AX211, but the Intel Killer AX1690i. According to information from ark, it was released in Q4 2021, supporting WiFi 6e and 2×2 MIMO on three bands: 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz, with a maximum speed exceeding 3000Mbps.

Boot Testing

14 cores and 20 threads, with 6 high-performance cores (P-Core) capable of turbo boost up to 4.7GHz, and 8 efficiency cores (E-Core) max turbo at 3.5GHz, with a 24MB L3 cache.

Under default conditions, the Serpent Canyon’s CPU power wall PL1 is 80W, and PL2 is 95W. This power wall exceeds that of many desktops, with the instantaneous power during stress tests reaching 95W, sustained power at 80W, and temperature stabilizing around 84 degrees under long-term FPU stress tests, indicating that this machine is very capable of releasing CPU performance and cooling, with no performance concerns.

The entertainment master ran three times; just take a look, it’s for entertainment.

Second test.

The i7-12700H CPU-Z score is single-core: 696 multi-core: 7827, slightly better than the i9-10900K desktop processor.

According to the CPU-Z benchmark scores, it can be seen that the CPU performance is not inferior to desktops. It even outperforms desktop processors. This shows that the CPU performance is very strong.

As Intel’s currently strongest mobile GPU, the Arc A770M is built on TSMC’s 6nm process, featuring 32 Xe-core, supporting 16GB GDDR6 memory, 256-bit wide bus, 512GB/s bandwidth, core frequency of 2050MHz, and memory frequency of 2000MHz.

Furmark single GPU stress test, GPU power release of 116.5W, in full power release state. The GPU temperature at this time is 80℃, controlled in an ideal state.

3D MARK total score: 10197 graphics score: 10341 CPU score: 9454.

On October 5, 2022, 3D MARK released an update for the intel XeSS feature test; think about what this means. One can think about whether Intel has deep technical exchanges with major game manufacturers due to the CPU. The slogan “Choose Intel for gaming” is still fresh in memory; now let us wait and see.

Resolution Revolution

XeSS (Xe Super Sampling) enhances performance and image fidelity through AI-enhanced upgrades, taking your gaming experience to new heights. With hardware acceleration and AI algorithms, enjoy ultra-high-definition visuals at high performance. XeeSS is designed with all gamers in mind, and can be used on relatively common hardware once unlocked.

Currently Available in Latest Games and Engines

In Intel’s first round of driver game optimizations, the following recent games were officially released to support XeSS technology.

The official website shows that Intel’s SDK for XeSS technology is open to the public, meaning that in the future, many games and Intel® and other GPU vendors’ hardware will widely use this technology.

In the game “Hitman 3“, the official test results show that using the Arc 3 graphics card can achieve up to double the performance compared to integrated graphics.

Let’s take a look at the actual performance.

Master Lu ray tracing score 30608.

It is well known that Intel’s integrated graphics have always led in video encoding and decoding, and its discrete graphics have further amplified this advantage, being the first to support 8K encoding and AV1 format encoding. The A770M includes two sets of media engines.

Hardware Acceleration is Crucial for 4K Video Editing

4K resolution brings an astonishing viewing experience. But it poses high challenges to users’ hardware and software, especially on consumer-grade computers.

Below are some challenges in 4K video editing.

• Laggy and unstable 4K video playback: This issue becomes more severe if your computer or target device cannot play 4K video.

• Decoding and encoding UHD videos is slow and freezes because 4K video files are always large.

• Quality degradation during editing: Many video editing applications automatically lower the resolution or crop the image.

• When the computer overheats, CPU usage jumps above 90%.

Faced with the challenges of 4K content, many choose 1080P or 720P, but still crave the ultra-high-definition experience. When it comes to solving problems related to 4K content, GPU acceleration is the key to success.

GPUs process graphics tasks faster while freeing up the CPU to keep all essential applications running smoothly. If the software does not support GPU acceleration, the CPU will exhaust its last energy to power 4K video. This can easily cause problems.

When? When a video processing converter processes a video (even 4K), CPU usage remains low. You can let it work in the background while performing other tasks on the computer. Transcoding 4K video will not slow down your computer. Its full GPU acceleration is the most notable feature of video conversion. Moreover, it guarantees your original resolution and quality unless you customize it.

The Intel Arc A770M graphics card supports AV1 8K video decoding; let’s do a simple test.

Film Hurricane

Original video link: 【【8K demonstration video】Bilibili first release! Can your device handle it?】 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1qM4y1w716?share_source=copy_web&vd_source=7d3cc4fd95a7f7322756a1681897e81d

Edge with hardware acceleration disabled playing 4K AV1.

Edge with hardware acceleration disabled playing 4K HEVC.

Edge with hardware acceleration disabled playing 4K Youtube.

Edge with hardware acceleration enabled playing 4K Youtube.

8K HDR 60FPS FUHD

ARC™ Opens a New Era

Intel’s latest Arc™ A-series graphics cards pair the CPU and GPU together through Intel® Deep Link technology, gaining advantages across various workloads, elevating performance to a new level. With Xe Super Sampling, you can further enhance your gaming experience through AI-enhanced upgrades, increasing output resolution while maintaining high image fidelity under maximum workloads. Intel Arc™ graphics cards bring a new era of graphics quality and performance. Unleash your gaming potential with Serpent Canyon now.

The Arc A770M features 32 Xe HPG cores running at 1650MHz and 16GB of GDDR6 memory. Its early benchmark tests place it in the range of mobile GPUs like Nvidia RTX 2070 Super Max-Q or Radeon RX 6600M, although Intel’s relatively immature graphics drivers may lead to performance in games being somewhat lower than suggested. Note again the comparison with laptop specifications. While the NUC system can upgrade RAM and M.2 storage, it lacks options for upgrading the CPU or GPU, making it unable to compete directly with full-size desktops in the same price range.

The combination of the i7-12700H and A770M can meet the performance standards of high-performance gaming laptops, excelling in gaming and content creation. Currently, the official release version is a barebones version, supporting dual-channel DDR4-3200 memory, while providing two M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe storage slots and one M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe or SATA 3 storage slot, offering plenty of storage expandability.