The Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX is Intel’s current top-end NUC with a NUC 9 Extreme Compute Element (NUC9i9QNB) housed in a 238mm x 216mm x 96mm chassis. NUCs have traditionally been associated with the ultra-compact form factor (100mm x 100mm boards in a 0.63-litre or 0.42-litre volume chassis). The Skull Canyon and Hades Canyon products with their higher TDP processors had to be accommodated in 0.69L and 1.2L chassis, but the Ghost Canyon NUC kits with their support for PCIe video cards takes it to a whole new level with a 4.94L chassis. How much is Intel NUC Ghost Canyon price?
Intel NUC Ghost Canyon specs
| Intel NUC 9 Extreme Kit (Ghost Canyon) | Intel NUC Ghost Canyon price – Additional cost | |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i9-9980HK | ✗ |
| Motherboard | Intel Corporation NUC9i9QNB (U3E1) | ✗ |
| Memory | HyperX Impact 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-2666 | $113.03 |
| Graphics | Asus Dual GeForce RTX 2070 Mini OC (8GB GDDR6) | $419.99 |
| Storage | Intel Optane 905p 380GB SSD (PCIe NVMe) | $504.66 |
| Kingston KC2000 1TB SSD (PCIe NVMe) | ||
| Networking | Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 | ✗ |
| Ports | Front: 2x USB 2.0 Type-A, SD card slot, headphone jack. Back: 4x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, Dual Ethernet ports, HDMI, 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports, Optical audio, Lock slot | ✗ |
| Video Output | DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort | ✗ |
| Power Supply | 500W 80+ Platinum | ✗ |
| Case | Intel NUC 9 Extreme Kit | ✗ |
| Cooling | Dual 80mm exhaust fans | ✗ |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home | $139.00 |
| Dimensions | 9.4 x 8.5 x 3.8 inches (238 x 216 x 96mm) | ✗ |
| Price As Configured | $1,639.99 | $1,176.68 |
| Total Cost for NUC 9 Extreme Kit and Additional Components | $2,816.67 |
Intel NUC Ghost Canyon review
Design
For a desktop with an Intel Core i9 and an RTX 2070, the NUC 9 Extreme Kit is tiny. Honestly, it would be adorable if it weren’t adorned by skulls on both sides.
The chassis’ outer edge is made of black plastic, with metal mesh sides. The front panel has a white light ring around the power button, but is otherwise unadorned beyond its ports: an SD-card reader, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
The mesh side panels feature, besides the aforementioned skulls, a honeycomb pattern. Air comes in through the metal mesh and is expelled from the top, which is covered in vents.
On the back are all of the ports attached to the Intel Compute Element, which powers the NUC. There are 4 four USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, dual Ethernet, HDMI, a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports, optical audio and a lock slot. If you have a GPU like our review unit does, the video ports will also be there.
I adore how small this thing is. At just 9.4 x 8.5 x 3.8 inches (238 x 216 x 96mm), it can fit on virtually any desk, as well as in an entertainment center plugged into a TV. Something like this is really perfect while I’m confined to my New York City apartment with a tiny desk. It’s a lot of power for such a small device. The Zotac Mek Mini is slightly larger at 10.3 x 10.2 x 5.4 inches, while one of our favorite prebuilts, the HP Omen Obelisk, is comparatively massive at 17.1 x 14.1 x 6.5 inches.
Gaming and Graphics review
The NUC 9 Extreme can fit an 8-inch GPU. In fact, it’s the first of Intel’s NUCs to fit a discrete GPU, period. In the case of our review unit, the graphics card was the Asus Dual GeForce RTX 2070 Mini OC. I took it for a spin by playing Control at 1920 x 1080 with the high settings preset and medium ray tracing preset. The game fell just short of 60 fps, typically hovering between 54 and 59 fps. The exception was on the Astral Plane, a level with an all-white background, in which it went up to 93 fps.
On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (highest, 1080p), the game ran at 105 fps on the NUC 9 Extreme, beating both the Mek Mini (RTX 2070 Super) and Omen Obelisk (RTX 2080 Ti). This may be due to updates and patches in between the tests as well as differences in cooling. The NUC dropped 39 fps at 4K.
When it came to Grand Theft Auto V (1080p, very high), The NUC 9 Extreme played the game at 89 fps (27 fps at 4K), falling behind both the Mek Mini and the Omen Obelisk.
On Hitman (1080p, ultra), the NUC ran the game at 124 fps, but still fell behind the Mek and the Omen. It played the game at 64 fps in 4K.
The NUC beat the Mek again in Far Cry New Dawn (1080p, ultra), playing the game at 98 fps to the Mek’s 89 fps. The Obelisk out performed the NUC, at 105 fps. At 4K, though, the Mek Mini eked out a few more frames than the NUC.
To stress test the Ghost Canyon NUC, we ran Metro Exodus 15 times on a loop at the RTX preset. The game ran at an average of 56.3 frames per second and was largely consistent across the 15 runs. It had an average CPU speed of 4 GHz with an average CPU temperature of 74.3 degrees Celsius (165.7 degrees Fahrenheit). The GPU ran at an average clock speed of 1595.1 MHz and an average temperature of 63.8 degrees Celsius (146.8 degrees Fahrenheit).
It has an 8-inch Asus Dual GeForce RTX 2070 Mini inside (the dual refers to two fans, not two 2070 GPUs), so that had to be removed. You unplug the power cable from the card, remove two screws that secure the GPU to the case and then lift it out of the PCIe slot on the baseboard. There are two PCIe slots on the board that sit above the power supply (one PCIe x16, one PCIe x4), though the GPU in our unit was a dual-slot card.
With the GPU out of the way, you’re at the Compute Element. If you want to update storage or the RAM, there’s no real reason to lift it out.
The door on the Element is blocked by a paper “air guide,” so you need to hold that back. The door itself is held in place by two screws that need to be removed. Then you can lift the door off, though be careful because a cable attaches to the fan, which is a part of the door.
Inside there are two M.2 slots (one of ours was filled with a Kingston KC2000 1TB SSD). The one on the left fits M.2 modules up to 110 mm in length, while the one on the right can fit a module up to 80 mm.
On the right side of the module are two SODIMM slots. Ours came with a pair of 8GB HyperX Impact RAM (16GB in total). Interestingly enough, it was a 3200 MHz pair, but Intel shipped it running at 2666 MHz.
The kit typically comes empty, so you will need to provide the RAM and storage if you purchase this NUC.
But there’s room for another SSD beneath the Compute Element, so we took that out, too. You remove one screw securing it to the case, and then disconnect the audio, Wi-Fi antenna, USB Type-C, front panel, fans and the 8-pin power connection. The Wi-Fi is particularly easy to remove, with two pins that simply lift out of the Element. Then you can unlock the PCIe slot and lift the Element out.
There’s a heatsink covering the third M.2 slot, which is held down by two screws (this slot can fit modules up to 110mm. When you remove that, you can add more storage. Ours came filled with a 380GB Intel Optane 905p SSD.
The case, Compute Element and GPU are all separated. The pre-installed 500W Flex ATX power supply, however, is still in the case. To get everything back together and working, we had to effectively “build” the PC, reattaching the components and cables
Intel NUC Ghost Canyon performance review
The Intel NUC 9 Extreme Kit (Ghost Canyon) uses a mobile processor. Our Compute Element came equipped with an Intel Core i9-9980HK “Coffee Lake” processor. Our review unit came with 16GB of HyperX Impact RAM, a 380GB Intel Optane PCIe NVMe SSD and a 1TB Kingston KC2000 PCIe NVME SSD. Because this is a barebones kit, performance will vary based on the parts you use.
But this is a desktop, and that’s what we’re comparing it to. Other mini PCs use desktop CPUs, like the Zotac Mek Mini and its Intel Core i7-9700. We’re also comparing it to a desktop i9 in one of our favorite prebuilts, the HP Omen Obelisk (Intel Core i9-9900K).
On Geekbench 4.3, the NUC 9 Extreme earned a score of 30,176, surpassing the Mek Mini (27,156) but losing out to the Omen Obelisk (34,167).
The NUC 9 Extreme took 3 seconds to transfer 4.97GB of files, a rate of 1,696.4 MBps. That’s the same as the Omen Obelisk, but the Zotac Mek Mini was just a tad behind at 1,272.3 MBps.
It took the NUC 9 Extreme 7 minutes and 44 seconds to complete our Handbrake test, which transcodes a 4K video to 1080p. The Omen was faster (5:31), and the Mek Mini fell behind at 8:18.
How much is Intel NUC Ghost Canyon price?
How much is Intel NUC Ghost Canyon price? While Intel will be selling the NUC 9 Extreme this March as a barebones system (read: bring your own OS, memory, storage, and GPU) starting at around $1,050 with a Core i5 module, $1,250 for Core i7, or around $1,700 for the flagship Core i9, it won’t be the only company pushing the idea. Razer and Cooler Master have both confirmed they’ll be selling their own complete turnkey gaming rigs later this year based on the NUC Element module, but with standard SFX power supplies and room for larger graphics cards than Intel’s own box, as well as their very own distinct NUC Element enclosures. You’ll be able to buy Intel’s board separately and stick it into one.
Both Cooler Master and Razer are notable partners because they’re new to the desktop market; Intel’s move means a PC parts vendor can now sell entire computers.
Plus, Intel says other vendors are signing up to sell its own Ghost Canyon box as a complete system as well — and there’s even a second version of the NUC, dubbed Quartz Canyon, that’ll offer Intel Xeon processor modules to businesses that need them.