It’s finally time for our Skylake i7 NUC (NUC6i7KYK also known as Skull Canyon NUC) review. For those of you who have been following the topic and read my sneak peek last week, this first part is probably a bit of a rehash, but I’m sure the benchmark results in part 2 will be interesting!







Features

Intel Core i7-6770HQ processor (Quad-core, max. 3.5 GHz, TDP 45 W)

Intel Iris Pro 580 Graphics

Two DDR4 SO-DIMM sockets (up to 32 GB, 2133+ MHz)

Two M.2 slots with flexible support for a 42 or 80 mm SATA or PCIe SSD

Integrated Wireless-AC 8260 and Bluetooth 4.2 adapter

SDXC card reader (UHS-I)

Four USB 3.0 ports (including one charging port)

Consumer infrared sensor

Intel Gigabit LAN adapter

One Mini DisplayPort version 1.2

One Thunderbolt 3 port with USB 3.1 (USB Type-C connector)

One full-size HDMI 2.0 display port



Technical product specification with all those nitty-gritty details is available here (PDF).

Chassis

With the Skull Canyon Intel has decided to go for a totally different kind of case. It’s still ridiculously small, but this time much wider than before. The dimensions are 8.3″ x 4.6″ x 1.1″ (211mm x 116mm x 28mm) so it is flatter than any NUC before but also wider than anything before. It’s pretty much the same size as an average paperback novel.

On the front we have a power switch that lits up when the unit is powered, an SD card reader slot, two USB 3.0 ports (yellow one is fast charging capable), headphone jack and an infra red receiver. Hexagon has clearly been the shape that the designer of this unit has had in mind!

Behind the unit you will find a DC connector, optical sound out, gigabit Ethernet, two more USB 3.0 ports, Mini Displayport 1.2 connector, USB 3.1/Thunderbolt 3 connector and a full size HDMI connector.

If the mean-looking skull gives you the creeps or just prefer the plain matte black cover, Intel includes another cover in the box. You can unfasten the six hex screws with the included Allen key and replace it.

Like before, the VESA mount to attach the unit behind your monitor is included. The power brick is a bit larger one this time and it can output 120 watts.

What’s Inside?

The Skylake i7 NUC is delivered without memory and storage media included. For memory you should choose either 4, 8 or 16 gigabyte memory modules. There are two slots available and even if you can populate only one of them, you should definitely consider installing two similar memory modules for optimal performance. The memory module must be a 1.2 volt DDR4 SO-DIMM module, and if this one is anything like its predecessors it can be a bit picky regarding the compatible memory modules. If you want to be sure that you get the right kind of memory module go visit the NUC Guru – our resident guru who can suggest you hardware that definitely works together. I actually tried several different types of memory in order to find out how critical the memory speed is when it comes to performance. I’ll write a separate article on that topic later on. The fastest RAM that I could get hold of for the Skull Canyon NUC at the time of writing was the G.Skill Ripjaws DDR4-2800. I also tried out HyperX 2133 MHz and 2400 MHz RAM that worked fine in this unit. However, I did not see much performance difference between these RAMs (read more on the next page).

After removing the four screws that secure the bottom cover to the chassis, you can immediately access the mainboard. Note that the unit does not have a slot for a 2.5 inch drive – it’s M.2 SSD or nothing. Or two of them, as there are two slots. Supported M.2 drive lengths are 42 and 80 mm. I used a Samsung SM-951 NVME SSD that I had lying around, even if Samsung 950 Pro would have been a better choice. The maximum bandwidth of the NVME SSD is not locked at 1600 MB/s like on the previous generation i7 NUC. It might be worth noting that the RAID controller does not support NVME drives, you can only use it if you equip your NUC with slightly slower SATA M.2 SSD drives.

EDIT: NVME drives are supported for RAID operation. You must use UEFI boot in that case. Read Intel’s detailed instructions on how to setup NVME RAID here.

The 802.11ac WiFi adapter is soldered to the mainboard and not replaceable.

BIOS

The device runs Intel’s usual Visual BIOS. This time Intel left a lot of the performance tuning options unlocked. This gives some possibilities for overclocking the unit. I started with BIOS version 33 that I later updated to 34.

Windows Installation

Installing Windows was a breeze. I used Windows 10 November 2015 image, also known as version 1511, and installation itself was uneventful and as expected. It took took literally some 5 minutes, thanks to the ultra-fast USB stick and the NVME SSD drive I was using. However when the system was up and running a driver from Intel’s download center was needed for both the WiFi and Ethernet adapters before the system was fully usable. When the networking was up and running Windows automatically installed the necessary drivers for rest of the NUCs components. However, the display driver was not the latest and greatest version, so I replaced the driver with a newer one from Intel’s support website.

Read Further

The next parts of our Skull Canyon NUC review:

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