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I thought the move from my light gaming laptop with i7-6700hq processor and Nvidia GTX 960M would have been more difficult, or resulting in a similar experience, being only able to play most titles at medium quality, but I was wrong. Older games like Skyrim at ultra quality runs beautifully and flawlessly without skipping a beat at 60+ fps. Even first person shooters on high quality mode yields upwards of 110+ fps.

Granted, if you like playing the latest titles at maximum graphics, this may not be the right rig for you, as nothing is going to compare to running multiple desktop cards in SLI or Crossfire mode, but for what the NUC 8 is, it perfectly meets my needs and I have no doubt it will continue meeting them for years to come. This is a huge improvement over the previous Skull Canyon NUC.

There is an upgraded model (may not yet be available), the NUC8i7HVK, which pairs a slightly (<1%) more powerful CPU with a much higher-end Radeon Vega M on-chip GPU which will no doubt be better suited for more avid gamers, but the additional cost for such a marginal improvement for workstation use is a bit steep. Think of it though as the standard and K (unlocked) desktop processors.

Fully configurable RGB LED's if that is important to you. Includes a VESA mounting plate to attach it to the back of your VESA-ready monitor. If you are like me and use a monitor arm, your VESA slot is already taken up due to mounting hardware, you may need a VESA extension bracket like this one: https://amzn.to/2Kot9jY

Perhaps my only complaint thus far is the size of the power brick -- the largest I've ever encountered, and I've had some 135W laptop bricks in the past. Wishful thinking, I know, but perhaps its size is because it contains some batteries to keep the unit running for a few minutes during a power outage...

he 2400g I just could not get it to be stable while gaming. I spent two months troubleshooting every possible piece of hardware/software and finally just gave up and got the Hades Canyon NUC. Immediately I had a better experience with the NUC.

The box that the NUC comes in is all fancy! Granted aesthetics doesn't affect your PCs performance but bonus points to intel anyway. I already had a copy of Windows 10 as well as an NVME and SATA SSD drive so all I had to do was install the memory I had purchased with the NUC. It only took about 5 minutes to unscrew the NUC case, install the memory and SSD drives then screw the case back on. Windows 10 installed stupid fast and I was at the Windows desktop in about 15 minutes. From there it did take about 20 minutes to download the remaining Windows updates but then I was good to go.

One of the awesome things that Intel includes is the Driver & Support assistant software. It's a one-stop shop that takes you to a webpage that automatically scans all the drivers for your NUC hardware. If anything is out of date it shows you and gives you a link to download the newest version and install it. This is super useful as you only need to run it once a month or so. The only thing it is missing is BIOS updates which you have to go to a separate webpage to get but hopefully they will integrate BIOS updates on the same webpage in the future.

I originally purchased this for my wife to use as her PC. To be honest it is complete overkill for her needs. However, I also wanted a PC that could do some decent gaming as a backup to my main gaming system. I was a bit nervous about the AMD graphics drivers performance given all the problems that I had experienced with the AMD 2400g APU but it turns out I had nothing to worry about. The drivers in the NUC have been completely flawless from day one. I have read some other people leaving reviews on Amazon stating that they are experiencing thermal throttling on these NUCs. All I can say is that maybe they had defective units and that I have had zero issues with this. Keep in mind I have tested gaming for 3-4 hours straight and still no issues. I do have the BIOS settings set to COOL instead of QUIET. Every few minutes I will hear the fan kick up for about a minute then ramp back down to normal where I can't even hear it running. Note that even at it's highest RPM the fan is not that loud, certainly not in comparison to most 'GAMING' notebooks out there that sound like a hair dryer on full blast.

Almost every game I've tested has run at 60fps solid at 1080p at maxed settings. This includes, but is not limited to StarCraft 2, Heroes of the Storm, Diablo 3, Doom (2016), Demigod, Left 4 Dead 2, Killing Floor 2, Titan Quest, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Borderlands and Borderlands 2. The only game I've played recently that I CAN'T max out are The Division and Far Cry 5. Note that I can get VERY close to maxing out all settings on these two games, just a couple of settings have to be set to medium. I suspect that I could probably play several of these games on my ultrawide monitor (3440x1440 res) that I currently use on my gaming PC and STILL play at 60fps solid with maybe some graphics settings turned down a bit.

Still, this is exactly what I wanted performance wise. Basically you are getting performance that is close to, but not equal to a GTX 1060. It blows my mind that Intel was able to cram that much performance in to something of this size. Yes, it is significantly larger than all previous NUCs but it also CRUSHES all previous NUCs in gaming performance, period. If you are looking for something that has excellent gaming performance, relatively quiet fan noise in a small footprint then this is definitely for you. If anyone has any questions on this please feel free to ask me and I'll be glad to answer questions you have on this.

kull Canyon and it was an amazing machine for what it was, what it wasn't was gaming capable. Even at low settings on 1080p it struggled.

Enter Hades Canyon, this is a completely different machine. The power on this thing is nothing short of spectacular, especially when you think about how it is all crammed in a insanely small enclosure. Did you say IO? This thing has so many ports it aint funny.
6 USB 3
1 USB 3.1 Type C
2 Thunderbolt 3
2 HDMI
2 Display ports and ...
Two Intel Gigabit Ethernet ports.
Oh, Oh I almost forgot there is a full sized SD Card reader as well.

The aesthetics are pleasing, love the honeycomb texture and the skull is full on addressable RGB LED (of course). It can be turned off as well, oh and if you choose to turn the LED's off, there is no trace of the skull! Love it.

I popped in 32GB of RAM (yeah I know, I know), a 512gb Sammy Pro 970 and in about 35 minutes I was booting up to windows 10 for the first time. The majority of the drivers were loaded during the install, specially cool since wifi was one of them and I was able to complete the install and then get all of the other drivers with the Intel Utility.

I ran 3DMark on it and came out in the the top 20% with the reference GPU being a 1080ti, not too shabby. I also ram PCMark and again very high scores for this tiny little thing. Is it the most powerful? NO! But is it insane for what it is? You bet your sweet hybrid chip!

I have played Battle Field 4, Titanfall 2 and Mass Effect Andromeda at 3440x1440 at normal setting with excellent frame rates on the 50's. In 1080p, I used max out setting on all and still got about 60-90 FPS on these games.

I know it has only been a few days, and time will tell regarding longevity, but if it is anything like my two other NUC's well it should be kicking for a while. Once I get it dialed down completely, I will start top play with over clocking it since you can modify CPU and GPU clock speed and you can also OC the RAM.

So far there is absolutely NOTHING I can say about it as a con, except that it cost a ton of loot. But luckily that wasn't a factor when deciding whether to build or buy. The cool factor is in effect and it is hard to fault the performance when all is taken into consideration especially the minute size. I get it that this is not for everyone, but it is PERFECT for me.

aptop with the same processor, right? Yup, I decided to buy the 2018 Dell 15 2-in-1 first because everything is already integrated. I still kept thinking about the Intel NUC even after I got the laptop. Don't get me wrong...It's a great laptop. So, what do I think of this NUC?

I absolutely LOVE it! It's small. It's quiet. The BIOS options are insane! Excellent multi-system/console emulation performance. Hackintosh works - kinda. It's well built - it's deceiving heavy because of that. It's energy efficient - Wemo Insight tells me it draws 30W at idle (take it for what it is worth). It has a slew of ports. It blows away all the other computers/laptops I own. Yes surprisingly that includes the Dell 15 2-in-1 with the same processor. Unless you're coming from a top of the line gaming PC, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised what this unit has to offer.

I highly recommend it!

UPDATE: 8/16/2018
I’ve been using the NUC as my primary workstation for the last few weeks. I still have absolutely no regrets buying it. I did upgrade the wireless card with a Intel 9260-AC with Bluetooth 5 since the unit came with an older one. New card cost about $25 or so (no biggie). It was plug and play. Windows 10 detected it without any issues. Love it (FYI you can’t upgrade the wireless on the Dell 2 in 1).

Fan noise? Don’t let it deter you from buying it. My desktop with an Nvidia GTX was much louder than this one. The only difference was that the desktop was under my desk which muffled some of the fan noise. I have the Intel nuc sitting between my two monitors now. It’s not as bad as most people/reviewers make it seem. If you want to play AAA game titles and want the NUC to be whisper quiet, you best look into a water-cooled desktop. Expect a little fan noise under load and you’ll be fine.

UPGRADABILITY
Other than the NVMe, memory, and wireless card, there’s not much you can upgrade. I personally don’t think that is a negative. Just buy the max memory from the get-go and upgrade the wireless/NVMe when prices come down. I looked back on all the years (20+ years and being in the IT career)...I’ve rarely had to upgrade much of anything in my devices. When the machine was too slow, I just bought a new one.

That leads me to my next point. When you’re ready to upgrade to the next big thing, I can foresee so many uses for this unit. You can reconfigure it as a mini set top box, NAS, firewall, dev box, emulation station, etc. the possibilities are limitless.

Other cool features:
- you can reassign the LEDs in the front for other functions instead of power, hdd, network. You can set each independently as CPU load, power load, and a
few others. Or you turn them all off.
- the unit already has a slew of ports on the front and rear. To my surprise, there are more internal connectors in case you want to expand it with a custom DYI case mod. If you have access to a 3D printer, that is certainly a possibility. You’ll need to supply your own cables but they look standard.
- having 2 m2 slots for your NVMe drives is super convenient. I have one configured for Linux/OSX and and the other for Windows 10. Switching between the 2 OS is way better than using bootcamp via OSX.

I haven’t tried testing vSphere on it. If there’s enough interest, I’ll do it.

There’s nothing like this on the market in this form factor. I’m seriously considering buying another just so I can play games in my living room. It’s that good!

ook sized PC can easily outperform a decent gaming PC that cost about the same price, and it's easily 10% of the size the gaming desktop is, and weighs 10% as much.

Intel also knocked it out of the park with the new Intel CPUs with AMD discrete graphics embedded into the CPU chip. It's truly the way of the future to decrease the size of computers, and increase the power of those smaller machines. Bravo Intel.

eah, if you've ever wanted one of them "Steam Machines" - this device will fit into this role very well.

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