Intel Serpent Canyon NUC Wields Alder Lake CPU, Arc A770M GPU

Phantom Canyon's successor is on the way. A new Baidu forum post reveals the design and potential specifications for the NUC 12 (Serpent Canyon), which wields the 14-core Core i7-12700H and Arc A770M mobile discrete graphics card.

Serpent Canyon will arrive with substantial upgrades in both the processing and graphics departments. While Phantom Canyon was reliant on the quad-core Core i7-1165G7 (Tiger Lake), Serpent Canyon packs the Core i7-12700H that features six P-cores, eight E-cores, and up to 24MB of L3 cache. In addition, the Alder Lake-H chip boasts a boost clock speed of 4.7 GHz on the P-cores and 3.5 GHz on the E-cores. It's a significant upgrade considering that the Core i7-1165G7 is a 28W chip, whereas the Core i7-12700H is a 45W (115W MTP) part.

Phantom Canyon taps Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2060 (Turing) graphics card. Since Intel now has discrete options in its arsenal, the chipmaker opted to incorporate the flagship Arc A770M (Alchemist) SKU into the next-generation NUC. The graphics card sports the ACM-G10 silicon, which offers 32 Xe cores, 32 ray tracing units, and a graphics clock up to 1,650 MHz. The Arc A770M has 16GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit memory interface. Intel rates the Arc A770M with a graphics power between 120W and 150W, but it's unknown how much thermal headroom the chipmaker has given the graphics card in Serpent Canyon.

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The processor and graphics card upgrades are probably why Serpent Canyon rocks multiple vents throughout its body. The Baidu user estimates Serpent Canyon to have a 2.5-liter body, making Phantom Canyon look puny with its 1.3-liter case. Aesthetically, Serpent Canyon still features Intel's blue skull logo, and according to the forum user, consumers can customize the top cover. Serpent Canyon can stand vertically or horizontally. Due to its design, the vertical orientation will require users to buy a separate stand.

Serpent Canyon offers the latest in high-speed connectivity. The front panel flaunts a Thunderbolt 4 port, SDXC card reader with support for the UHS-II rating, USB 3.2 Type-A port, and a 3.5mm audio connector. The rear panel provides four USB 3.2 Type-A ports, an Intel 2.5GbE Ethernet port, another Thunderbolt 4 port, and a 3.5mm audio connector. In terms of display outputs, Serpent Canyon has one HDMI 2.1 port and two DisplayPort 2.0 outputs.

The Baidu thread doesn't offer any insights on the pricing or availability for Serpent Canyon. The user only mentioned that the NUC would be available soon. Phantom Canyon retails for around $1,200, depending on the configuration. Serpent Canyon could debut in a similar price range.