Intel Dragon Canyon NUC12EDBi9: Small form factor PCs made simple

This easy-to-build gaming PC offers more performance and fewer compromises than its predecessor.

- ALAINA YEE

Last summer, Intel leaned hard into its line of modular gaming PCs. Its launch of Beast Canyon (fave.co/3L9X9V3) (aka the NUCBTM) muscled up into small form factor (SFF) PC territory, with an eight-liter case capable of housing full-length graphics cards. The only compromise—if you could call it that, given the strong test results-was its soldered mobile chip.

Half a year later, the release of Dragon Canyon eliminates that weakness. This Next Unit of Computing (NUC) variant doesn't revolutionize much. A new processor is the star of the show: a socketed Alder Lake chip, plus some of the platform upgrades that come with 12th-gen Core chips. Otherwise, this NUC looks the same as Beast Canyon, thanks to sporting virtually the same chassis as its predecessor.

But we can't say that it's just a processor upgrade. Moving from a mobile chip to a replaceable desktop CPU is quite a move. On paper, Dragon Canyon looks much better equipped to face off against a DIY SFF PC. And that's exactly what we're going to dig into in this article.

DESIGN AND FORM FACTOR

Dragon Canyon is actually the code name for the $1,450 NUC12EDBi9 and $1,150 NUC12EDBi7–Intel's official names for the Core i9 and Core i7 variants of this barebones gaming PC. The company sells it as a kit, which means you have to bring your own memory, storage (fave.co/2Z26gQg), and graphics card (fave.co/3DOEUWk). Everything else (the chassis, cooling, and proprietary power supply) is included.