Traditionally, desktop PCs have always been thought as loud and heavy machine together with footprint that is bulky enough to occupy most of the precious space on one’s table. Well, things have changed a lot since then. For example, Intel has recently released a collection of small form factor desktop PC called Next Unit of Computing (NUC) which is so small that it could fit on one’s palm.

Innovated and designed by the folks at Intel Malaysia (although the actual production units are manufactured in Taiwan), what we have here is the Intel NUC DC3217BY kit – one of two NUC kits that are available in the market right now. Codenamed “Box Canyon“, the kit is equipped with an 1.8GHz Intel Core i3-3271U dual-core processor that also features the built-in Intel HD Graphic 4000 GPU for graphic duties as well as the support for Intel HyperThreading technology. Additionally, the Intel NUC DC3217BY kit also supports couple of other Intel’s in-house techs such as Intel Anti-Theft, Intel Wireless Display, Intel HD Audio and Thunderbolt.

That being said, the Intel NUC doesn’t work out of the box though. This particular kit still requires couple of components from users such as RAMs, storage drive and a power cord (yes, you read that right). The kit also requires a separate Wi-Fi adapter if one would like to connect it to the Internet since it doesn’t come with Ethernet port.

Click on the Read More link below to take a further look at the Intel NUC DC3217BY kit.

Apart from the NUC unit itself, the DC3217BY kit also includes a VESA mount, set of screws and a 19V power adapter. As we mentioned earlier, no power cord is included in the kit.

The USB 2.0 port on Intel NUC DC3217BY’s front panel.

On its back are [L-R] the connector for the power adaptor, 2 x USB 2.0, HDMI and Thunderbolt ports. There is also a Kensington Lock slot, located right next to the ventilation grill.

To remove the kit’s underside cover, all one need to do is just remove all four screws that are located within the unit’s feet.

The Intel NUC DC3217BY kit is equipped with two SODIMM DDR3 1066/1333MHz RAM slots that support up to 16GB of total memory. Seen here on the lower SODIMM slot is a 4GB Kingston ValueRAM DDR3 1600MHz module.

A 40GB Intel SSD 310 series mSATA solid state drive on the kit’s top mini PCIe slot. Users can also choose to fit half-size mini PCIe card into the slot.

Unlike the kit’s top slot, only half-sized mini PCIe cards can be fitted into the its lower PCIe slot. Shown here is an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 dual-band wireless adapter.

Do note that the mini PCIe SSD and wireless adapter as well as the RAM module that are shown above are not included with the kit’s retail unit. They are just part of our review kit from Intel.

There are only two screws holding the NUC kit’s chassis and motherboard together. Users are able to separate them easily once those screws are removed. Also visible inside the chassis are the integrated antennae for wireless adapter.

The Intel DC33217CK motherboard – codenamed “Campus Lake” – that is contained within the Intel NUC DC3217BY kit.

Flip the motherboard over and there it is underneath the factory-installed heatsink – the 1.8GHz Intel Core i3-3217U dual-core processor.

Stay tuned for our performance review on the Intel NUC DC3217BY kit in the near future as we’ll put the kit through its paces very soon. Don’t forget to leave any suggestion or questions about the kit that you would like us to answer in the review through the comments section below.