Up close with the Intel Hades Canyon

Would you believe this tiny box is a full-fledged gaming PC? It's the Intel Hades Canyon NUC, a $1,000 barebone box with a powerful Intel CPU and integrated AMD graphics. 

Note: A "barebone" box means you need to provide and install your own memory, storage, and a copy of Windows.

It's powerful enough to drive a VR headset like the Oculus Rift... and has the front-mounted HDMI and USB ports to make that easy, too.

Feast your eyes on all those sockets. Two of everything you need. 

Or four, when we're talking USB 3.0. There's also two more USB 3.0 ports up front, and headers for four more USB ports inside the box itself.

A basic PC setup (mouse, keyboard, monitor, ethernet, power) barely uses those ports. So what are they all for? Intel says this sucker can drive six simultaneous 4K monitors if you want. And those twin Thunderbolt 3 ports, well... might I suggest an external graphics card? 

Yes, there's a glowing skull on top. But you can turn it off, or change the colors.

That also goes for the three status LEDs and the power button LED on the front. There's a whole configurator so you can set them to any color you like, have them breathe or strobe or flash in time with network or hard drive activity.

You can even set them to do something different when the system's in sleep mode.

Here's what the Hades Canyon looks like powered off. 

One last peek at the Intel Hades Canyon NUC.