Intel introduced the NUC back in the latter part of 2012, and the name NUC stands for "Next Unit of Computing." Since the dual-core Ivy Bridge inception, the NUC team over at Intel have been taking the small brick PC's to new levels as each new chipset and architecture launched. The NUC series has enjoyed deployments for everything from digital signage to simple to setup device that you could install for a less tech-savvy family member or someone who did not need the horsepower of a full-fledged desktop PC.

Well, the team inside Intel who push the limits of NUCs have made it a goal to go beyond the perceived use case of a low power PC, to make the NUC more desirable to power users. While several of the small square units like you see above had some powerful options, Intel had ambitions to revive their extreme edition moniker and skull design for their tiny systems. The first we saw of this was the Skull Canyon in 2017, powered by a 6th gen quad-core paired with Intel Iris graphics. That was a good start as it sported dual M.2 slots when NVMe was just starting to become a mainstream storage solution.