The Intel NUC 9 Ghost Canyon packs dual Thunderbolt 3 and dual Ethernet

The Intel NUC 9 Ghost Canyon is a rare bird in the mini PC world — it gives you two Thunderbolt 3 ports on the rear panel. That’s the kind of I/O you’d expect on a workstation, not a tiny square box.

Up front, you get two USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, one USB-C (also Gen 2), and a headphone jack. Around back, the dual Thunderbolt 3 ports are the headliner, but there’s more: two separate Gigabit Ethernet ports (Intel i210 and i219 — proper Intel controllers, not Realtek), two more USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A, HDMI 2.0b, and a mini DisplayPort 1.4.

The dual Ethernet alone makes this thing interesting for a router or firewall build. Mini PCs with two separate NICs are uncommon, and Intel controllers are the gold standard for that use case. Throw in dual Thunderbolt 3 for external GPU or NVMe enclosures, and the Ghost Canyon punches well above its size class.