Power Consumption, Pricing, and Availability
Power Consumption
For power testing, we monitored power consumption of our test systems both at idle, as well as a gaming scenario in Far Cry 5.
Under a gaming load, the NUC8i7HVK surprisingly wasn't the lowest power device. At 140.8 Watts, it consumed 13.2 Watts more than the 1050 Ti system, but 16.4 Watts less than the RX 560-based setup.
At idle, the Hades Canyon NUC achieved an impressive 17.6W, almost 30W less than the rest of the systems and showing the mobile pedigree of this platform.
Pricing
The highest end Hades Canyon NUC, the NUC8i7HVK, with Radeon RX Vega M GH graphics has an MSRP of $999. Keep in mind, this is for a barebones kit, and you'll need to provide your own DDR4 SODIMM memory, as well as an M.2 Storage device.
In the configuration Intel provided us for this review, with 16GB of Kingston HyperX DDR4-3200 memory, as well as both an Intel Optane 800p 118GB and an Intel 545s 500GB SSD, the total configuration cost comes out to a staggering $1700 or so at current prices, with a license of Windows 10 Home.
For my money, I would go for a more reasonable configuration. Ditching the Optane 800p, and going strictly with a 500GB M.2 SATA SSD such as the Western Digital Blue. Additionally, you should see little performance hit by going to slower DDR4 memory, such as DDR4-2400. Keep in mind that despite being an integrated graphics solution, Kaby Lake-G has it's own onboard HBM 2 memory, so you aren't sharing system memory with the graphics subsystem.
In my more modest configuration, the NUC8i7HVK would run you about $1400. Compared to a full desktop system built around the i5-8400 and GTX 1050 Ti combo, this is about a $300 price premium. Additional savings could be found by dropping down to the cheaper NUC8i7HNK option with the i7-8705G, however since we haven't had the chance to test that processor, we can't speak to the performance differences.
Keep in mind that the additional money is providing tremendous space savings over the tradition PC with a mid-tower case.
The Hades Canyon NUC and the Kaby Lake-G i7-8809G provide a big step forward for Intel. Their first processor with truly competitive graphics embedded, hopefully, this project isn't a one-off and is more indicative of an Intel that sees the competition in the market space and is responding appropriately.
While naturally there is a price premium over a similar performance level desktop PC, I don't think it's as severe of a compromise as most people have predicted. Unlike the Skull Canyon NUC, Hades Canyon provides a viable solution for gamers looking for a compact PC solution. Similarly, Hades Canyon would provide a great solution for gamers looking for an HTPC solution, albeit at 1080p only.
I'm very excited to get my hands on more devices equipped with Intel 8th Gen Core Processor with Radeon RX Vega M Graphics. There are still a few unknowns, such as how the 65W versions of these chips will perform in more thermally constrained notebooks, but I think the Kaby Lake-G platform has great promise and the NUC8i7HVK is a great showcase.
The Intel Hades Canyon NUCs are set to be available for pre-order tomorrow (3/30), and will be shipping later in April.
30% more than a 1050ti, with
30% more than a 1050ti, with comparable performance to a 6 core cpu? Impressive.
Shit, throw a 2/4 i3 w/ a 1050ti equivalent into it, and price at $499 or less and I will buy 2.
Why would you choose this
Why would you choose this over a mini itx build?
Are there any mini ITX builds
Are there any mini ITX builds that even approach this in size? These NUCs are a little smaller than a hardback book and oftentimes lighter as well, no mini ITX case I’ve personally seen even approaches the NUC in terms of size. The smallest mini ITX I can find is the S4 Mini but I might be wrong about that, with the S4 Mini though the size difference between it and the NUC is bigger than the size difference between mini ITX and Full Towers.
Here’s a quick comparison I did for my own purposes but I guess it doesn’t hurt to share it:
http://comparesizes.com/comparison/NUC2/1522348845958
I just hope the inclusion of HBM and the GPU doesn’t mean this thing is suddenly selling for twice as much like most graphics cards, if it actually sells for it’s MSRP and stays there, I’ll be buying another NUC it seems. I’d love to see more powerful mini computers, something that’s around the same size as a hardcover book or even a paperback will fit in most containers that people travel with, nobody so far has stuffed a full fat PC with all the trimmings ala NVME, Thunderbolt and lower mid range GPU in a thing this size. I’d love to be wrong on this account though and discover a bunch of book sized mini PC’s but I’m not holding out much hope for that.
I’d be down for one at
I’d be down for one at $4-500, but the $1k price point of these seems a bit steep.
At $4-500, this would be
At $4-500, this would be cheaper than a full size, full power machine of the same performance, and you’re always going to pay at least a bit more for SFF, so that price isn’t likely.
I just don’t understand what
I just don’t understand what the usage case is for this product and you give it a gold award? Why does this product even exist?
These things are some of
These things are some of Intel’s best selling products, in fact it’s the only part of Intel’s business related to microprocessors that has grown exponentially and it’s done it very quickly.
These things pack more than enough power to be put into increasingly cramped office environments, internet cafes and for people that do certain types of field work.
NUC stands for “Next Unit of Compute”. In a few years I’d be surprised to see anything bigger than these things for the average person that might still buy a desktop, this product exists because it makes a buttload of money and that buttload of money is increasing whilst the money from everything else is declining.
Even if this computer is
Even if this computer is useless for you, it is perfect for other people. I use the previous Skull Canyon as my office computer at work and nothing else on the market can replace it.
For my work I need a fast CPU with at least 4 cores and as many as possible USB ports and Ethernet ports. On my desk, besides 2 monitors, there are a lot of electronic prototypes, power supplies etc., there is no place for a larger computer or for a laptop. Nevertheless the computer must stay on the desk, because I very frequently connect or disconnect USB or Ethernet cables to it. I also need Thunderbolt or at least USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gb/s) for an external SSD. I do not use internal SSD’s, because I must move every day the SSD between my office computer and my home computer, and from time to time to the laptop used for business trips.
So Skull Canyon and Hades Canyon are exactly what I need. Every other computer on the market is either too large, or it has a too slow processor, or it has too few USB ports, or it has no Thunderbolt or USB 3.1 Gen 2 or no DisplayPort.
So even if you are not aware of this, many people need computers very different from what you use.
LAN parties for days ……
LAN parties for days …… LAN parties for days 😡
How was the fan noise when
How was the fan noise when gaming? Did it get hot?
Ok I want to Know the
Ok I want to Know the Shader/TMU/ROP counts on the AMD semi-custom discrete die that’s on the EMIB/MCM. And I’d really like to Know the the Shaders to ROPs ratios and the Sheaders to TMUs ratios also.
We Now have access to Vega graphics that only has access to 4GB of HBM2 over a single HBM2 Stack’s alotment HBM2 and at 1024 traces(That’s Divided into 8 indipendent 128 bit channels according to the JEDEC HBM2 standard). So can there be some testing of Vega’s HBCC IP where Vega’s HBCC makes use of the HBM2 as HBC(High Bandwidth cache).
I’d like to see some Games tested using Texture mods that total larger than 4GB in texture size to test out Vega’s HBCC IP.
Some websites need to purchase these NUC SKUs outright for testing outside of any review manual NUC(loaner sample)restrictions for testing the Vega graphics, including the HBCC/HBC(HBM2) IP, on Vega.
Why is there only PPC(Pixel per clock information on some websites) and no ROP counts to be found for this Intel/Vega SKU. I’m seeing shader counts and TMU counts from some January 2018 articles but really WTF is up with the usual GPU specifications on these MCM based Radeon Vega semi-custom SKUs!
What does GPUz say about Shaders/TMUs/ROPs and let’s look at Shader to TMU ratios and Shader to ROP ratios on these Intel/Vega SKUs with Vega/MCM graphics and how that compares with Vega 56’s and Vega 64’s Shader to TMU and Shader to ROP ratios.
The JEDEC HBM2 standars also has a 64 bit psudeo channel mode where each of the 8, 128 bit HBM2 channels is split into 2 64 bit psudeo channels are any GPU makers taking advantage of that part of the JEDEC HBM2 standard currently in their GPU’s drivers or the GPU’s memory controller.
Do the physics and graphics
Do the physics and graphics test run at the same time? I ask because I’m curious to see what they’ve done to address the package having to deal with the combined CPU+GPU thermals.
When you have time could you do something to evaluate that possible issue? Maybe test with some games known for use a lot of CPU? Thank you!
Neat.
I winced at the price
Neat.
I winced at the price at first, but seeing the ample connectivity and performance, I guess the price is reasonable.
Why do you make no mention of temperatures and sound levels though? Dissipating 140W at that size has to be challenging.
Haha, having read
Haha, having read Notebookcheck’s review, I have to say, you should have really clarified just how large the power brick is.
When form factor is half the selling point, a power brick that’s as large as the device it powers is noteworthy.
Ok, it’s good but for this
Ok, it’s good but for this money , I will prefer Chuwi HiGame!
Intel’s Hades Canyon NUC is a
Intel’s Hades Canyon NUC is a powerhouse for the games and really useful for the game lovers as my brother has bought one for him when I was busy in my https://www.goldenbustours.com/niagara-falls-bus-tour-packages/ and always like to play games on this.