AnandTech: The Intel NUC8i7HVK (Hades Canyon) Review: Kaby Lake-G Benchmarked

[PeterScott]

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12572/the-intel-hades-canyon-nuc8i7hvk-review-kaby-lakeg-benchmarked

It's too bad AT doesn't create forum topics for its reviews like other sites to foster discussions, and instead has a kludgy front page only comment system.

Anyone want to discuss the Hades Canyon review?

Noise? Was there a comment on how loud it is in the review, because I missed it. Noise is a factor in a lot of SFFs because you might want such a small box right on your desk.

GPU performance: I guess it is somewhere near GTX 1050 Ti?? Hard to tell because no GPU near it's performance was tested.

While nifty, it is too pricey to justify for me.

 

[jpiniero]

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel...eon-RX-Vega-M-GH-Mini-PC-Review.290800.0.html

Yeah, 1050 Ti performance in gaming. Have to say I was expecting it to be closer to the 1060 Max-Q.

 

[raghu78]

The Hades Canyon NUC is an impressive piece of hardware. For 100w the system is able to perform on par with a desktop GTX 1050 Ti with a 4C or 6C core CPU . I think the NUC will probably be a little bit slower than GTX 1060 Max Q. The 3DMark Firestrike graphics and TimeSpy graphics score are quite close to GTX 1060 Max Q.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1060-Max-Q-GPU-Benchmarks-and-Specs.224734.0.html

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graph...a-takes-trip-Hades-Canyon/Graphics-Comparison
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-hades-canyon-nuc-vr,5536-5.html

Its very clear that even at these low clocks the Vega GPU is thermally limited.

 

[raghu78]

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel...eon-RX-Vega-M-GH-Mini-PC-Review.290800.0.html

Yeah, 1050 Ti performance in gaming. Have to say I was expecting it to be closer to the 1060 Max-Q.

Faster than 1050 Ti desktop GPU and very close to notebook GTX 1060 MaxQ. Do not understimate the effect of thermal limitations on GTX 1060 MaxQ compared to desktop GTX 1060. Desktop GTX 1060 is >= 30% faster than GTX 1060 Max Q.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1060.167603.0.html
https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1060-Max-Q-GPU-Benchmarks-and-Specs.224734.0.html

 

[tamz_msc]

It is a pity that AMD's video-decoding capabilities are still lagging behind and neither Intel nor AMD thought of making an optimus-like solution to address it.

 

[french toast]

It is over priced but some nice technology and design, barebones these little boxes should be 5-600$ for the top model.
With GPU prices are the way they are they could have made a killing.
AMD could have designed their own little raven ridge one, barebones 350-370$...sell tonnes of them...loads of profit.

 

[DaveSimmons]

It's an impressive tiny gaming PC, though not quite good enough to satisfy me for 1080p gaming -- it's fine in some of the tests but under 60 fps in others.

A version 2 with node improvements (what used to be a die shrink) could bump it up to a no-compromise 1080p for gaming.

 

[raghu78]

It is over priced but some nice technology and design, barebones these little boxes should be 5-600$ for the top model.
With GPU prices are the way they are they could have made a killing.
AMD could have designed their own little raven ridge one, barebones 350-370$...sell tonnes of them...loads of profit.

Not really as low as USD 600. In this crypto mining inflated GPU price market Intel could have priced the Hades Canyon NUC at USD 800 and it would have been a great value given the form factor and portability benefits.

 

[NTMBK]

Shame that the Xbox One X blows it out of the water for both media consumption and gaming.

 

[Qwertilot]

Doesn't the (vastly) faster CPU bit help it out sometimes?

You can see where Intel got their marketing from - some games really benefiting from being able to crank the CPU power draw up. Others not of course.

 

[Headfoot]

The graphics ranking really tanks hard with resolution and detail increase. I suspect its due to memory bandwidth. You look at the lower res stuff (1680x1050) and it sits nicely close to the GTX 980, but you go up to 1080p at full settings and it drops hard.

 

[Qwertilot]

From that notebookcheck review:
"The NUC demands more power than a 15.6-inch gaming laptop equipped with a 7th gen HQ-class CPU and GTX 1060 or GTX 1060 Max-Q GPU even after accounting for the display and keyboard components that the NUC lacks."

Sigh. I do wish they were doing this NV GPU's - the result would be a lot better. Of course hell will freeze over first

 

[ondma]

The graphics ranking really tanks hard with resolution and detail increase. I suspect its due to memory bandwidth. You look at the lower res stuff (1680x1050) and it sits nicely close to the GTX 980, but you go up to 1080p at full settings and it drops hard.

I noticed that too, that performance is relatively a lot worse at 1080p. I know some are a fan of these small form-factors (AT certainly does a disproportionate amount of reviews of them), but I really dont see the point in most cases. You sacrifice a lot of performance for the small size, yet it is still not easily portable like a gaming notebook.

 

[PeterScott]

Shame that the Xbox One X blows it out of the water for both media consumption and gaming.

Not a surprise. XB1X has 40 CUs vs Kaby-G 24 CUs, and has console optimization in it's favor.

If it could run Windows 10, I would have one already. It would be an amazing SFF.

 

[Qwertilot]

The graphics ranking really tanks hard with resolution and detail increase. I suspect its due to memory bandwidth. You look at the lower res stuff (1680x1050) and it sits nicely close to the GTX 980, but you go up to 1080p at full settings and it drops hard.

Isn't some of that also the CPU vs GPU bit? Game at lower resolutions & the GPU part isn't stressed much and you're CPU limited. At that point this thing can throw an awful lot of power budget at the CPU!

 

[PeterScott]

Faster than 1050 Ti desktop GPU and very close to notebook GTX 1060 MaxQ. Do not understimate the effect of thermal limitations on GTX 1060 MaxQ compared to desktop GTX 1060. Desktop GTX 1060 is >= 30% faster than GTX 1060 Max Q.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1060.167603.0.html
https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1060-Max-Q-GPU-Benchmarks-and-Specs.224734.0.html

I think that is faster than laptop 1050 Ti.

Essentially dead heat with a desktop 1050 Ti:
https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graph...a-takes-trip-Hades-Canyon/Graphics-Comparison

 

[SPBHM]

Not a surprise. XB1X has 40 CUs vs Kaby-G 24 CUs, and has console optimization in it's favor.

If it could run Windows 10, I would have one already. It would be an amazing SFF.

Jaguar CPU is painful, you can simulate the Xbox One X CPU kind of well by downclocking a FX 83xx to around 2.3GHz but even that is probably faster;


for $1K this NUC looks very overpriced for the GPU/CPU perf it offers (since it lacks memory/storage), if it had something closer to a 1070 than a 1050 ti it would make more sense.

also the CPU being slower than the i5 8400... feels like it's 1 year late.

 

[IntelUser2000]

It is over priced but some nice technology and design, barebones these little boxes should be 5-600$ for the top model.

$600 is too low. Even if you assume $300 for CPU and $300 for GPU, you still don't count for the rest of the system.

 

[PeterScott]

for $1K this NUC looks very overpriced for the GPU/CPU perf it offers (since it lacks memory/storage), if it had something closer to a 1070 than a 1050 ti it would make more sense.

Yeah, definitely overpriced. Another Anandtech story:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12594/xiaomi-announces-mi-gaming-laptop

A whole laptop, with CPU/GTX 1060, RAM, SSD, Display, HDD for under $1000.

We need Xiaomi to build a cool SFF with GTX 1060.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Intel's ARK page has the recommended price set at $749 for GL version and $910 for GH. It's interesting since they said it was $799 and $999.

 

[Bouowmx]

Yeah, definitely overpriced. Another Anandtech story:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12594/xiaomi-announces-mi-gaming-laptop

A whole laptop, with CPU/GTX 1060, RAM, SSD, Display, HDD for under $1000.

We need Xiaomi to build a cool SFF with GTX 1060.

This raised a question within me: why did Kaby Lake-G happen and Xiaomi announce a laptop today? Rumor is Coffee Lake-H is happening next week.

 

[raghu78]

I think that is faster than laptop 1050 Ti.

Essentially dead heat with a desktop 1050 Ti:
https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graph...a-takes-trip-Hades-Canyon/Graphics-Comparison

Rx Vega M GH is 10-20% slower than GTX 1060 Max Q. You have to compare with CPUs of roughly similar performance. Its faster than GTX 1050 Ti desktop.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel...eon-RX-Vega-M-GH-Mini-PC-Review.290800.0.html

"Actual gaming performance sits slightly below the GTX 1060 Max-Q even though 3DMark benchmarks rank the Vega GPU slightly higher. Rise of the Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite may run about 10 percent and 20 percent slower, respectively, than on a GTX 1060 Max-Q laptop set to maximum 1080p settings"

https://www.digitaltrends.com/desktop-computer-reviews/intel-hades-canyon-nuc8i7hvk-review/

Rx Vega M GH is definitely GTX 1060 Max Q class performer. Depending on the game either one could pull ahead. On average the GTX 1060 Max Q is marginally ahead.

 

[IntelUser2000]

The NUCs were never known for being low cost. They are after all, sold by Intel. They got out of the motherboard business to make specialty products like the NUC.

 

[PeterScott]

Rx Vega M GH is 10-20% slower than GTX 1060 Max Q. You have to compare with CPUs of roughly similar performance. Its faster than GTX 1050 Ti desktop.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel...eon-RX-Vega-M-GH-Mini-PC-Review.290800.0.html

"Actual gaming performance sits slightly below the GTX 1060 Max-Q even though 3DMark benchmarks rank the Vega GPU slightly higher. Rise of the Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite may run about 10 percent and 20 percent slower, respectively, than on a GTX 1060 Max-Q laptop set to maximum 1080p settings"

https://www.digitaltrends.com/desktop-computer-reviews/intel-hades-canyon-nuc8i7hvk-review/

Rx Vega M GH is definitely GTX 1060 Max Q class performer. Depending on the game either one could pull ahead. On average the GTX 1060 Max Q is marginally ahead.

I have never seen you work so hard to tilt something in favor of Intel.

But you are misrepresenting the content of those links to make your case.

You keep saying it is faster than desktop GTX 1050 Ti. But the link (notebookcheck) you include says:

"Gaming Performance - More like a GTX 1050 Ti"

Also they are using a laptop based GTX 1050 Ti.

For an actual Desktop GTX 1050 Ti, see the link I showed further up the page, which uses an actual desktop GTX 1050 Ti and they are clearly the same performance, and PCPer says:

"Compared to our desktop GPUs, the RX Vega M GH graphics fall in line with the performance of a GTX 1050 Ti."

I'm not sure what you are having such a hard time accepting that Intel Kaby-G has GPU performance equivalent to a desktop GTX 1050 Ti.

 

[PeterScott]

$600 is too low. Even if you assume $300 for CPU and $300 for GPU, you still don't count for the rest of the system.

Unfortunately, I have to agree. Intels MSRP on the old Skull Canyon CPU was over $400 just for the naked CPU. This one is probably ~$600 just for the CPU/GPU package. I don't think we will see the full fat version in anything that cost less than $1000.