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.

Since Dragon Canyon and Beast Canyon share virtually the same chassis, the concept is exactly the same as before. Inside that eight-liter case, there are just two components to deal with: An Intel Compute Element module (