The NUCs, short for Next Unit of Computing, have stood for small mini PCs from Intel for years. The NUC9 Extreme aka Ghost Canyon is no exception, on the contrary: with a volume of just under five liters, the system is currently the most compact with such high application and gaming performance. In addition to the performance, we were particularly impressed by the equipment and upgradeability in the test, while the very high costs for the exclusive form factor of the system contrast.
Our sample is the NUC9i9QNX, the fastest version of the Ghost Canyon. With the NUC9i5QNX and the NUC9i7QNX there are two more offshoots that do not differ apart from the processor. With 238 x 216 x 96 mm, the NUC9 is very small, the Dan Cases A4-SFX is clearly more voluminous with seven instead of five liters. There is with Lazer3D HT5 a compact 5-liter case, unlike the Ghost Canyon, only a slower, low-profile graphics card can fit in here.
As with all NUCs, it is a barebone, on the part of Intel only the main board including the processor and a Bluetooth / WLAN module are available as a basis. Users have to buy the RAM, the SSD (s) and the optional graphics card. Before we devote ourselves to the structure, a few words about the connections: On the front there is the blue illuminated power button, an SD card reader (UHS-II), a jack socket and two USB-A-3.2 Gen2 ports. There are four USB-A-3.2 Gen2, two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C), dual Gigabit Ethernet, a Toslink jack and an HDMI 2.0a available at the rear.
NUC9 Extreme aka Ghost Canyon (Image: Marc Sauter / Golem.de)
To put the NUC9 Extreme into operation, we first have to disassemble the barebone, then assemble it with components and then reassemble it. In principle, this works well, but users should be sensitive and patient. Due to the compact dimensions, all components of the Ghost Canyon are packed extremely tight, which also affects the thermal properties. In the first step, the two screws in the rear have to be loosened so that the cover can be removed with the two exhausting 80 mm fans. The mesh mesh side panels can then be pulled out upwards.
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Inside the NUC9 Extreme is the 500 watt power supply, actively cooled with a 40 mm propeller, an FSP500-50FSPT, which is certified with 80 Plus Platinum and is therefore very efficient. Above it sits a daughter board with two PCIe slots, one of which contains that
Interchangeable Compute Element and one holds an optional graphics card. The daughter board also has an M.2-22110 slot and cooler integrated, which, like the PCIe slot for the pixel accelerator, is connected directly to the processor of the Compute Element.
If a graphics card and an M.2 SSD are installed in the daughter board, an ASM1480 muxer starts. The dedicated GPU can then only access 8 instead of 16 Gen3 lanes, the SSD receives four Gen3 lanes. Let’s see if that affects performance.
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