HTPC Credentials - Display Outputs Capabilities

The Frost Canyon NUC comes with two distinct display outputs capable of supporting up to three simultaneous displays. The characteristics are summarized in the table below. From a HTPC use-case perspective, the entries of interest include the ability to support UHD (3840 x 2160) or higher resolutions, along with HDCP 2.2. The latter enables the display output to be used for viewing protected content such as 4K Netflix streams and play back UltraHD Blu-rays.

Supporting the display of high-resolution protected video content is a requirement for even a casual HTPC user. In addition, HTPC enthusiasts also want their systems to support refresh rates that either match or be an integral multiple of the frame rate of the video being displayed. Most displays / AVRs are able to transmit the supported refresh rates to the PC using the EDID metadata. In some cases, the desired refresh rate might be missing in the list of supported modes, and custom resolutions may need to be added.

Custom Resolutions

Our evaluation of the as a HTPC was done using the native HDMI output connected to a TCL 55P607 4K HDR TV via a Denon AVR-X3400H AV receiver. We tested out various display refresh rates ranging from 23.976 Hz to 59.94 Hz. Of particular interest is the 23.976 Hz (23p) setting, which Intel used to have trouble with in the pre-Broadwell days.

The gallery below presents screenshots from the other refresh rates that were tested. The system has no trouble maintaining a fairly accurate refresh rate throughout the duration of the video playback.

High Dynamic Range (HDR) Support

The ability of the system to support HDR output is brought out in the first line of the madVR OSD in the above pictures. The display / desktop was configured to be in HDR mode prior to the gathering of the above screenshots.

The CyberLink Ultra HD Blu-ray Advisor tool confirms that our setup (Intel NUC10i7FNH + Denon AVR-X3400H + TCL 55P607) supports HDCP 2.2 along with HDR. However, despite enabling SGX in the BIOS with 128MB of RAM allocation (and also trying to set it to software-controlled) and confirming its activation with the MS Store App, Cyberlink's BD Advisor refused to see SGX enabled. As of the time of posting this review, we couldn't make the Frost Canyon NUC work for UHD Blu-ray playback. If we have better luck later on, the review will be updated to make note of the needed fix.

[Update (3/17/2020): While I continue to have terrible luck in enabling SGX to operate correctly with the CuberLink Ultra HD Blu-ray Advisor tool, Intel sent across proof that the Frost Canyon NUC is indeed capable of playing back Ultra HD Blu-rays.

It is likely that most consumers using the pre-installed Windows 10 Home x64 / pre-installed drivers will have a painless experience unlike mine which started off the system as a barebones version.]

Networking and Storage Performance HTPC Credentials - YouTube and Netflix Streaming
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  • TMCHouse - Tuesday, March 3, 2020 - link

    Hmm, I was expecting a real review with benchmarks, not just a system / specifications description. As a note, the people commenting on the graphics are spot on, I purchased one of these systems and the graphics performance is sub par to a NUC8I5BEH system. I've based this upon running multiple benchmarks and the frame rates are better on the older system with the Iris graphics. Unless you require loads of processor cores, you are better off with the older systems.
  • GreenReaper - Monday, March 9, 2020 - link

    I think perhaps you missed the other pages of the article? There are links and a combo box dropdown at the bottom, above the comments.
  • not_anton - Saturday, March 7, 2020 - link

    $600 barebone and they give you a huge ugly generic power brick to save like $10?
    Intel should but one of those Apple NUC minis to see how it should be done.
  • crashtech - Sunday, March 8, 2020 - link

    I can't believe they would regress in GPU! I question the value of the extra cores in such a device instead of improved graphics.
  • fishjie - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link

    Ok I'm glad I read this before buying. I own a NUC 6 skull canyon with i7 6770 and was shocked to see some of the benchmarks beat the new NUC 10. granted my use case is mostly watching netflix on my tv but i would want to game occasionally on it. going to explore some other options. Maybe the NUC 8 i guess. The explanation in the concluding remarks was helpful:

    "However, while the NUC8 was an upgrade over NUC7 in every respect, the Frost Canyon NUC10 slips up a little. Intel's 10th generation U-series processors come in two different versions – the 10nm Ice Lake and the 14nm Comet Lake. Intel's high-end Iris Graphics is available only on Ice Lake, and unfortunately, the Frost Canyon is based on Comet Lake. This means that, for a variety of graphics intensive workloads, the NUC10 actually performs worse than the Iris Plus graphics-equipped NUC8."

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