Intel NUC NUC6i7KYK Skull Canyon Mini PC Review

Final Thoughts On The NUC6i7KYK

The Intel NUC6i7KYK ‘Skull Canyon’ Mini PC kit is without a doubt the fastest NUC system ever developed. For years enthusiasts have begged Intel to put a more powerful quad-core processor in a NUC with more bells and whistles and that is exactly what they have done on this model. Having this much performance in such a small form-factor is tremendously impressive and it really is amazing how much performance this tiny box can deliver. Playing Battlefield 4 with medium on a 1080P display with Intel integrated graphics was something we didn’t think we’d be doing on a NUC. Thanks to Intel Iris Pro Graphics 580 (GT4e) you can actually play a wide selection of game titles without the need of a discrete graphics card. If you really want to play GPU intensive game titles like Fallout 4 we found that you need to use an external graphics solution, but the good news is the Intel NUC6i7KYK has Thunderbolt 3 and supports such a solution.

The NUC6i7KYK that we focused on in this review is priced at $635.77 shipped and is backed by a 3-year warranty. The Samsung SSD 950 Pro M.2 512GB drive was $317.00 and the Kingston HyperX Impact 32GB 2400MHz DDR4 CL14 SO-DIMM memory kit was $133.99 shipped. The total hardware cost for the setup that we tested was $1086.76. At nearly $1,100 this turned out being a fairly expensive build and that price will be too high for many. If you are a critic of the price you just have to remember that this is the flagship model and that is reflected in the price point. We expect to see some of the new technologies trickle down to the more affordable Core i5 models in the next generation NUCs, but for now you’ll have to pay to get them!

Legit Bottom Line: The Intel NUC Mini PC Kit NUC6i7KYK is the most powerful NUC every released!