Decoding Intel NUC "Canyon" Generation with CPU "Lake" Generation Codenames

Swift Canyon, Baby Canyon, Bean Canyon, Provo Canyon, Kaby Lake, Whiskey Lake, Coffee Lake ... these are just some of the Intel codenames that either refer to a NUC platform or CPU generation. I can understand the need for codenames, however for consumers, the various names are often confusing and being able to grok at which system is the "latest" is not always trivial. In some cases there are multiple updates to different generations of the platform all happening within a short period of time and most online sites may swap between codenames and the official "Nth" generation nomenclature.

I have been working with the Intel NUC platform from a VMware standpoint since the 6th Generation back in 2016 and even I still get confused at times on what is the latest "Canyon" NUCs and their respective "Lake" CPU generations. I can not imagine how complicated this might feel for some of our customers who are updating their VMware homelab every couple of years or someone who is just starting out for the first time. To not only help keep myself sane as I often get asked about Homelabs, literally on a weekly basis and to help educate others within out community, I have created a document which maps all Intel NUCs (full height) to their respective Nth generation along with the respective CPU architecture used in each platform.

This will be a living document that I plan to keep up to date as it pertains to running VMware on Intel NUCs. As of writing this blog post, there has been a total of 14 NUCs spanning 6th to 10th generations of the platform. I hope this reference will come in handy as folks look to building their own VMware homelab and understanding what options exists at a quick glance.

Short URL: vmwa.re/nuc

Note: If you are interested in understanding the Intel NUC product code naming convention, they have a very useful KB31273 which includes more details.