Intel NUC 11 Essential with Jasper Lake SoC Officially Launched

Controller Master


Although not available in retail quite yet, Intel has officially launched its NUC 11 Essential models built around its Jasper Lake SoCs and thanks to the new processor options, Intel’s entry level NUC models are looking quite promising. Not only are we looking at much better GPUs, with a 78 percent increase of execution units at the high-end, but even the low-end CPUs have had a 33 percent increase, when comparing Jasper Lake to Gemini Lake, which some older NUC models were based on. This is quite a jump, but it’s hardly surprising, as Gemini Lake was launched at the tail end of 2017.

There’s also official support for up to 32 GB of RAM and a boost in memory speed from 2400 MHz to 2933 MHz. Processor speeds have obviously been bumped somewhat as well between the processor generations, alongside with the GPU speeds, but we’re mostly looking at a few hundred MHz here, depending on the CPU model. All the new NUC models appear to be using the 10 W TDP Jasper Lake CPU SKUs and all of them should also come with 64 GB of eMMC soldered down, plus an M.2 2280 SATA and NVMe capable slot for SSDs.

Connectivity wise, Intel has gone for one HDMI 2.0b port, one or DP 1.4 port, two rear USB 3.2 10 Gbps ports, plus a further two around the front, plus two USB 2.0 ports around the back, Gigabit Ethernet and a separate headphone and microphone jack around the front. WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0 is provided by an aging Intel Wireless-AC 9462 module, so don’t expect WiFi 6 support. Intel supplies an external 65 W power brick that uses a standard barrel plug. No word on pricing at this point, as the new NUC models aren’t expected to hit retail until later this quarter, but the previous generation started at under US$200 for a barebone unit with the most basic CPU, so hopefully we’ll see something similar this time around. Intel will also offer a fully kitted out mini PC SKU with 4 GB of RAM and Windows 11. All SKUs, including the bare board, come with a three year warranty, which seems quite generous by Intel.