Intel Atom Bay Trail NUC Kit On Linux

With the early Atom "Bay Trail" hardware being disastrous for Linux, when Intel recently announced their Bay Trail based NUC Kit we were anxious and decided to give this unit a go. The Intel NUC Kit DN2820FYK packs an Intel Celeron N2820 Bay Trail CPU and motherboard supporting up to 8GB of DDR3L system memory and 2.5-inch HDD/SSD in a 116 x 112 x 51 mm form-factor. In this article is a rundown of the Phoronix experience so far for this Atom NUC Kit and how well it's running with Ubuntu Linux.

The Intel DN2820FYK is the company's latest NUC Kit that comes down to a palm-sized barebones computer. The DN2820FYK features an Intel Celeron N2820 "Bay Trail" processor with HD Graphics (Ivy Bridge derived), supports up to 8GB of DDR3L 1.35V system memory, and a single 2.5-inch HDD/SSD (an upgrade over earlier NUCs requiring mSATA storage). The unit is incredibly small and has a 12V, 36-Watt power adapter.

The Intel Celeron N2820 is a dual-core processor clocked at 2.4GHz. The Bay Trail CPU is 64-bit capable and sports a 1MB cache while having a max TDP of 7.5 Watts and a "Scenario Design Power" of 4.5 Watts. The N2820 supports dual-channel memory but on this NUC Kit is just a single memory channel. The Intel HD Graphics for this Bay Trail Celeron maxes out with a 756MHz core frequency.

Included with the NUC Kit was a back-plate for mounting the NUC Kit against a VESA monitor mount, various wall adapters for the AC power adapter, the necessary product documentation, and a quick install guide.