Intel NUC8i7HVK (Hades Canyon) Gaming Performance - A Second Look
by Ganesh T S on May 14, 2018 8:01 AM ESTFuturemark 3DMark
Futuremark's 3DMark comes with a diverse set of workloads that target different Direct3D feature levels. Correspondingly, the rendering resolutions are also different. In this section, we take a look at the performance of the Intel NUC8i7HVK (Hades Canyon) on a comparative basis across the different workloads.
3DMark Ice Storm
This workload has three levels of varying complexity - the vanilla Ice Storm, Ice Storm Unlimited, and Ice Storm Extreme. It is a cross-platform benchmark (which means that the scores can be compared across different tablets and smartphones as well). All three use DirectX 11 (feature level 9) / OpenGL ES 2.0. While the Extreme renders at 1920 x 1080, the other two render at 1280 x 720. The graphs below present the various Ice Storm worloads' numbers for different systems that we have evaluated.
| Futuremark 3DMark - Ice Storm Workloads | |||
The trend we see here - the Hades Canyon NUC almost catching up with the GTX 1060-equipped ASRock DeskMini Z370, but, not quite able to surpass it consistently - is something that we will see throughout the rest of this article.
3DMark Cloud Gate
The Cloud Gate workload is meant for notebooks and typical home PCs, and uses DirectX 11 (feature level 10) to render frames at 1280 x 720. The graph below presents the overall score for the workload across all the systems that are being compared. In this workload, the CPU power also comes into play, allowing Hades Canyon to overtage the ZBOX MAGNUS EK71080. However, the rest of the systems come with much more powerful CPUs, allowing them to leapfrog the Hades Canyon NUC easily.
3DMark Sky Diver
The Sky Diver workload is meant for gaming notebooks and mid-range PCs, and uses DirectX 11 (feature level 11) to render frames at 1920 x 1080. The graph below presents the overall score for the workload across all the systems that are being compared.
3DMark Fire Strike Extreme
The Fire Strike benchmark has three workloads. The base version is meant for high-performance gaming PCs. Similar to Sky Diver, it uses DirectX 11 (feature level 11) to render frames at 1920 x 1080. The Ultra version targets 4K gaming system, and renders at 3840 x 2160. However, we only deal with the Extreme version in our benchmarking - It renders at 2560 x 1440, and targets multi-GPU systems and overclocked PCs. The graph below presents the overall score for the Fire Strike Extreme benchmark across all the systems that are being compared.
3DMark Time Spy
The Time Spy workload has two levels with different complexities. Both use DirectX 12 (feature level 11). However, the plain version targets high-performance gaming PCs with a 2560 x 1440 render resolution, while the Extreme version renders at 3840 x 2160 resolution. The graphs below present both numbers for all the systems that are being compared in this review.
| Futuremark 3DMark - Time Spy Workloads | |||
In this DirectX 12 benchmark, we see the expected ordering on the basis of the GPU capabilities - the RX Vega M GH comes slightly behind the GTX 1060, but, is handily surpassed by the systems with the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080.
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Macpoedel - Tuesday, May 15, 2018 - link
About the performance and value:You can't compare this to an 8th gen desktop i7, that's a 6c/12t part and the i7-8809G is a 4c/8t part, more comparable to a Core i7 7700. If you had to compare it to current gen desktop CPU's I would put it closer to a Core i5 8400/8500 than a Core i7 8700, and those are $100 cheaper. The boxed cooler also fits in a lot of small form factor cases, and it's not like Hades Canyon is that quiet that you'd have to compare it with a Noctua or Cryorig cooler. In idle it's probably extremely quiet (I have a NUC6CAYH, Celeron NUC, and I've never heard the fan, only faintly if I hold my ear right next to the exhaust), but under load not so much.
About resale value, I'll have to believe you on that one. Thing is that on the online used marketplaces I frequent (not eBay, I'm from Belgium), none are for sale right now, which makes me think that Skull Canyon wasn't very popular. I see some eBay entries, but also no used ones in my region, just 2 in the US. There are some new ones for sale in my area but it's no wonder they're trying to sell those for close to retail price. I doubt a used Skull Canyon sells for close to retail price though, the iGPU has aged a lot.
I'm hoping you're right though, I'm selling my NUC6CAYH at the moment. But those are still for sale and Intel has dropped the price by quite a bit (bought it for €170, but it costs €120 in a lot of places at the moment) so I probably won't sell it for much over half of what it cost me (at least I'll be able to sell the memory for about the same as what I paid for it and it's not like €80 to use a pc for a year is that much).
I replaced my NUC with a small form factor mini ITX self build pc, it has a volume of 7,1 l, around the same as an OG Xbox One and also around the same performance (Ryzen 5 2400G). So not that small, Hades Canyon is a lot smaller, but this fits my cabinet without issues. It's also less powerful than Hades Canyon, but it also cost me less than €500 (SFF PSU costs the same as regular PSU, I use AMD's boxed cooler, RAM is expensive but Hades Canyon needs that as well, wifi and bluetooth came with the motherboard and custom cabling wasn't necessary at all). About Thunderbolt 3, I just don't see a use case for that right now in a home theater setup. An external GPU maybe? But why pay for the Vega M then, you could get a cheaper, regular sized NUC with Thunderbolt 3 (the higher end current 7th gen NUCs have TB3). For your use case I don't really see why you'd need Hades Canyon either.
I will say, for the size there's nothing more powerful you can get.
close - Wednesday, May 16, 2018 - link
Don't look at resale value like that:- Buying at sale - this is not generally available.
- Selling for $50 less - that's 25% of the original (sale) price.
- Selling on eBay - chance plays a huge role there (I've seen sales where the better products sold for less without any apparent explanation other than "luck", timing).
Almost 6 years ago I got barely used (2 weeks of usage) top of the line ROG MB, top of the line 8 core CPU, and top of the line 16GB of RAM for under 300E. 2 years ago I got a 980Ti for 100E. I can probably sell them today for more. Sales and second hand market need more than one example to see the trend.
And going to eBay I'm not seeing the kind of resale value you are seeing. I'm seeing 3 year old barebones NUCs (5th gen) that went for 300E new at around 200E with RAM now. Take out the RAM and you dip below half the price after 3 years.
And the NUC6i7KYK is currently available new for 450-500E. It was 799E at launch (stabilized at 650E shortly after). Can't really find used offers but it can't go for more than 350E. That's about 50% of original price. That's not exceptional.
I honestly think the resale value you're painting heavily relies on exceptional sales and lots of luck on resale.
nerd1 - Thursday, May 17, 2018 - link
$1617 is A LOT of money - you can build a tiny gaming ITX system (i.e. using Dan A4 case) with i5-8400 and 1070 with that amount of money.YukaKun - Monday, May 14, 2018 - link
Would it be too dumb to add a "performance / liter" type of thing to put into context the form format for this little box and the performance it brings to the table (pun might be intended)?Cheers!
YukaKun - Monday, May 14, 2018 - link
**form factorIcehawk - Monday, May 14, 2018 - link
You are saying this is roughly a 970? I get triple your fps in FC5, for example, at 4K Ultra even when it was in my 3770k rig. I know there are thermal constraints but this is a huge gap in performance.lioncat55 - Monday, May 14, 2018 - link
That does not sound possible, triple the frame rate would be 48 fps, looking at desktop benchmarks for Farcry 5 at 4k Ultra has a 1080 at 41 fps and a Vega 64 at 46 fps.nathanddrews - Monday, May 14, 2018 - link
My 970 and 3570K @ 4.2GHz also gets triple the frame rate... at the menu screen. LOLwr3zzz - Monday, May 14, 2018 - link
I guess the target demo of these systems are intended for those who are either space or aesthetic constraint of a traditional HTPC form factor. For the former NUC seems serious lacking in value proposition and for the latter these units as stand just don't pass the living room eye test.HStewart - Monday, May 14, 2018 - link
I think the main target of the i870XG cpu module is for laptops and not desktops - but it can be used in HTPC form factor.. but keep in mind - where Intel aim its performance - between 1050 and 1060.It this article, the closest system had a 1060 GPU but a Six core factor.
I have found with my Dell XPS 15 2in1, that the CPU is quite fast one but so far I am not sure about the GPU.
I believe we not see the real potential of this kind of NUC - until Intel releases a version with Artic Sound GPU. Even though it does the job - I feel the AMD GPU is only temporary.