Intel NUC6CAYH (Arches Canyon) Apollo Lake UCFF PC Review
by Ganesh T S on January 12, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Intel
- NUC
- UCFF
- Apollo Lake
- Arches Canyon
Final Words
The Intel NUC6CAYH provided us with the opportunity to evaluate a high-end member of the Apollo Lake SoC family. The Celeron J3455 is a quad-core processor with a 10W TDP. It easily enabled the NUC6CAH to come out on top in all of our benchmarks when compared against other Atom-class systems.
The HDMI 2.0 port (backed by a LSPCon) with 4Kp60 support is very welcome. However consumers need to keep in mind that the benefits from the HDCP 2.2 feature on that port are minimal at best. One of the popular streaming services that we tried (Netflix 4K) ended up not working as expected, with only the 1080p version of the 4K titles getting played. That said, the system has no issues playing all types of local 4K video streams using Kodi. VP9 Profile 2 is not supported, but, given the lack of HDR support, it is not a big deal. The presence of an infrared receiver also enables usage of a remote control if the system is used as a HTPC.
The presence of a VGA port also helps the NUC6CAYH target cost-sensitive markets that are yet to feel the need to move away from a VGA monitor to a HDMI or DisplayPort one. The SDXC slot is bound to have good performance, since it is enabled by a PCIe bridge (Realtek RTS5229). On the flip side, the unit only supports 8GB of RAM. Trying to install 2x 8GB SODIMMs makes the system ignore half the memory.
Coming to the pricing aspect, the NUC6CAYH is available for $130. This is par for the course when it comes to barebones systems using Atom-class CPUs. Intel recently announced that June Canyon (the follow up to Arches Canyon) had started entering the channel in late December. It uses a Gemini Lake SoC and promises better performance compared to Apollo Lake. This should exert further downward pressure on the Arches Canyon models, and that will only be good for consumers.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
54 Comments
View All Comments
negusp - Friday, January 12, 2018 - link
When are we going to get a Ryzen mobile review from IntelTech? Or are we going to have to continue to sit through overpriced Intel NUC reviews and the like?Ryan Smith - Friday, January 12, 2018 - link
"When are we going to get a Ryzen mobile review from IntelTech?"Hopefully soon. AMD has yet to ship us a sample (but is supposed to be doing so any time now).
negusp - Friday, January 12, 2018 - link
Cool, thanks.french toast - Friday, January 12, 2018 - link
Very poor from AMD, I wish they would get their act together with the tech press, how long has Ryzen mobile been out for? 3-4 months?.Hopefully after all this time they ship you Acer 2700u equiped unit.
Lolimaster - Friday, January 12, 2018 - link
They should buy the product, I mean, they salaries right? Not like it's a hobby site. Purch media, intel's ally.StevoLincolnite - Sunday, January 14, 2018 - link
Would have been great if you threw a couple of MOBA benchmarks in to see how she copes.HStewart - Monday, January 15, 2018 - link
I thought we have already had reviews on it - or is that just hype. I saw one in best buy yesterday and it look quite fat compared to other notebooks.But getting back this subject - this NUC you can't blame Intel as being over price - there is a big difference between 470 as configured and $130 for NUC from Intel - where is $340. for $470 you could almost buy 2 of these NUC's - for $470 you can get i5-7100U based nuc
HStewart - Monday, January 15, 2018 - link
I am not sure where you get "overpriced Intel NUC" from - maybe the review has it wrong, but if you go to the following link you can start out with minimal price of $215 - keep in mind it only has 32G eMMC and 2G of ramhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MXYZ8V5?tag=anandtech...
AbRASiON - Friday, January 19, 2018 - link
Sorry but the NUC is hard to find decent reviews of. It's one great thing Anandtech seems to consistently produce.Mind you, I think I'd rather wait for a 10nm NUC with Gen 10 or Gen 11 graphics. Really wanna see a 4k device which can do HDR, 60hz, (HDMI 2.1) etc. Probably still 18 months away
mode_13h - Saturday, January 20, 2018 - link
Go read about Gemini Lake. It's still made on their standard 14 nm process, but it ticks most of your other boxes ...and it's already in shipping devices!https://www.anandtech.com/show/12146/intel-launche...