Phantom Canyon NUC Rumored to Have Tiger Lake-U CPU, Xe Graphics, PCIe 4.0

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By Zhiye Liu
last updated

A user on the Chinese Chiphell forums shared some photographs from an unknown Intel event that purportedly reveal the specifications for the chipmaker's forthcoming Phantom Canyon NUC (Next Unit of Computing).

(Image credit: Chiphell)

If the unconfirmed specifications stand true, Phantom Canyon will most likely be a capable gaming device. The NUC is expected to launch in 2021, so it's safe to assume that Phantom Canyon could still be at the drawing-board phase. As such, treat the leaked information with some caution.

Phantom Canyon is reportedly powered by a 10nm Tiger Lake-U (TGL-U) processor, which adheres to a 28W TDP envelope. Coming after Ice Lake, the Tiger Lake chips could be produced with an improved 10nm+ process node. Information on Tiger Lake is still rather limited, but we think they'll wield the Willow Cove core architecture with Xe graphics.

(Image credit: Chiphell)

The specifications table from the PowerPoint slide suggests that Tiger Lake purportedly comes with support for the PCIe 4.0 interface. The 10nm parts apparently deliver up to four PCIe 4.0 lanes, which are probably there for the new wave of PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Phantom Canyon has up to two M.2 SSD ports that support SSDs with a maximum length of 110mm. It also has two DDR4 SODIMM memory slots to accommodate up to 64GB of memory.

Phantom Canyon will offer consumers the possibility to pair the unknown Tiger Lake-U chip with a discrete gaming graphics card, something along the lines of an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti or RTX 2060. A recent Reddit leak claims that Phantom Canyon is equipped with a 330W internal power supply, which explains the limited number of discrete graphics solutions.

The Phantom Canyon's other features include an undisclosed number of Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, built-in WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5 connectivity, 2.5G and Gigabit networking. The NUC has one HDMI 2.1 port and two Mini-DisplayPort 1.4 outputs for connecting displays.

Being a gaming-oriented product, the Phantom Canyon NUC comes with customizable RGB lighting. The device will employ a vapor chamber cooling system as well.

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • remosito
    slide says hdmi 2.1... your text says hdmi 2.0...
    Reply
  • bit_user
    remosito said:
    slide says hdmi 2.1... your text says hdmi 2.0...
    Good catch, though it's confusingly listed under dGPU. So, are they saying the dGPU will feature HDMI 2.1, and how are they certain (unless the dGPUs will have some special form factor that routes its outputs through the NUC's mobo)?

    Anyway, since Zhiye mentioned that right before the 2x MiniDP 1.4 ports, it's pretty clear that the info was meant to parrot what's visible on that slide.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    What I don't really get is why you'd need a vapor chamber cooler for a 28 W CPU. That's something you normally find on GPUs burning 6-11x as much power.

    Maybe due to the small die size and perhaps low thermal headroom? Or, do they just want the base config to stay quiet, even under load?
    Reply