[Hardware] INTEL NUC 13 EXTREME Combine a high-end graphics card

[Blackfire]

• What makes an NUC, an NUC? The acronym stands for Next Unit of Computing, and it was created as an attempt by Intel to completely reinvent what a computer is at its core. Mostly NUCs were about squeezing a whole PC's worth of components into a tiny, compact chassis. But that's not strictly true of the new Intel NUC 13 Extreme. It's comparatively massive compared to the NUCs we've seen before.

• The NUC 13 Extreme is about as big as some weak-hearted enterprise PCs—think of your run-of-the-mill HP office unit. That means it's definitely smaller than your average gaming PC but a big size creep on the small form factor Hades Canyon NUC I've tried out in the past. That Hades Canyon NUC really was a beautiful piece of kit, but it wasn't half as powerful as the NUC 13 Extreme.

  The NUC 13 Extreme is extremely well-provisioned for something of a small form factor PC. That's partially due to its cleverly routed case, which offers ample room for a high-end graphics card, a 750W PSU, and the Compute Element.

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  The Compute Element within the NUC 13 Extreme is the more NUC-like piece of the NUC 13 Extreme. It encompasses an Intel Core i9 13900K CPU, custom motherboard, 32GB DDR5 SO-DIMM RAM, Wi-Fi card, 1TB SSD, and I/O provided by the Z690 chipset. That's all on a single, removable board, and is basically what comprises any other NUC in its entirety, but the NUC 13 Extreme also sees Intel jam a whole RTX 3080 Ti inside for serious gaming performance.

 

 

CPU: Intel Core i9 13900K
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti
RAM: 32GB DDR5-4800 Kingston SO-DIMM
SSD: 1TB Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0
Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4/USB4 Type-C ports | 6x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A  (rear) | 2x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A (front) |  1x USB Gen2x2 Type-C (front) | Wi-Fi 6E | 3.5mm jack
Price: $1,698for barebones kit (no GPU, SSD, Memory, or OS) / $3,368 for RTX 4070 Ti version 

 

 

• That's what you get with the NUC 13 Extreme: beefy gaming performance. This NUC offers up a slot for a discrete graphics card, up to a length of 313mm, a triple-slot, and 450W power demand. That means you can feasibly fit pretty much any modern graphics card in the NUC 13 Extreme, even an RTX 4080 Founders Edition, which I may have installed for entertainment purposes. It even has a 12VHPWR connector should that be of any use for your choice of GPU

• Intel's provisioned the particular NUC I have for testing with an RTX 3080 Ti. It's no slouch. That card is a bit of a menace when it comes to 4K gaming, delivering 1440p easily in excess of a 144Hz refresh rate for the most part, and more than playable 4K frame rates. I love the NUC 13 Extreme for its unassuming and diminutive design but how it also rips through most games you throw at it.

  I can't find many ways to fault the NUC 13's design. The graphics card is mounted outwards on the other side to warm your feet while you game, but generally runs pretty cool. It definitely benefits from being a very compartmentalised PC—the graphics card isn't choking for air—though admittedly there is no case fan actually blowing over the graphics card, which can make it run a little hotter with increased ambient temperature.