ASRock Industrial's NUC(S) 1300 BOX Series Brings Raptor Lake to UCFF Systems

Intel recently updated their low-power processors lineup with the Raptor Lake U- and P- Series 13^th Gen Core mobile SKUs. Supporting a range of TDPs up to 28W, these SKUs allow ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) PC manufacturers to update their traditional NUC clones. Starting with Tiger Lake, ASRock Industrial took over ASRock's Beebox chassis design and equipped it with a 4"x4" industrial PC motherboard internally. The company has typically announced these NUC clones within a few days of Intel's platform announcement, and things are no different with Raptor Lake this time around.

One of the key updates this time around is the bifurcation of the NUC BOX lineup into slim and high-rise versions - the traditional NUC 1300 BOX series retains the previous industrial design with support for a 2.5" SATA drive. The new NUCS 1300 BOX series forsakes the 2.5" drive support and cuts down the height of the system from 47.85mm to 38mm. The company is also currently restricting the processor choice to either the Core i7-1360P or Core i5-1340P. In total, there are six different models being launched, and the key differences are summarized in the table below. Dual LAN capabilities are available only in the high-rise versions.

Note that the M.2 2280 support in the NUC BOX is enabled with a separate bracket, while the screw base is already at the correct position in the NUCS BOX.

Similar to the NUC 1100 and NUC 1200 BOX series units, one of the Type-C ports in the front panel is advertised as USB4, but does possess Thunderbolt 4 capabilities. ASRock Industrial seems to have retained the same components from the NUC 1200 BOX series for the NUC(S) BOX 1300/D4 series too - so, while the port is USB4 and has 40Gbps capabilities along with DP 1.4a Alt Mode, it doesn't have the newly advertised 20G (USB 3.2 Gen 2x2) support that Intel has promised for the Thunderbolt ports in the low-power Raptor Lake mobile platforms. One of the requirements for this support seems to be the new Hayden Bridge retimer, which is not used in the NUC(S) 1300 BOX/D4 series.

However, it does look the DDR5-capable D5 version uses a different configuration, allowing it to claim DP 2.1 from the USB4 port. We have reached out to ASRock Industrial to check if this enables 20G USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 support also. (Update: The company confirmed that the D4 versions use the Burnside Bridge retimer, which enables DP up to HBR3 and USB3 10G, while the D5 versions use the Hayden Bridge retimer that enables DP up to UHBR310/20 and USB3 20G).

In terms of availability and pricing, the company plans to release the DDR4 version first. The NUCS 1300/D4 BOX Series will ship early next month, while the NUC 1300/D4 Series with SATA support will ship towards the middle of February. The barebones 1360P versions of both systems (without the SODIMMs and disk drive(s)) is expected to have a market price of around $700.