The Intel NUC8i7HVK (Hades Canyon) was reviewed in late March, and emerged as one of the most powerful gaming PCs in its form-factor class. Our conclusion was that the PC offered gaming performance equivalent to that of a system with a GPU between the NVIDIA GTX 960 and GTX 980. We received feedback from our readers on the games used for benchmarking being old, and the compared GPUs being dated. In order to address this concern, we spent the last few weeks working on updating our gaming benchmarks suite for gaming systems / mini-PCs. With the updated suite in hand, we put a number of systems through the paces. This article presents the performance of the Hades Canyon NUC with the latest drivers in recent games. We also pulled in the gaming benchmark numbers from a couple of systems still in our review queue in order to give readers an idea of the performance of the Hades Canon NUC as compared to some of the other contemporary small-form factor gaming machines.

Introduction

The gaming benchmark suite used to evaluate the Hades Canyon NUC in our launch review was dated and quite limited in its scope. Games such as Sleeping Dogs and Bioshock Infinite are no longer actively considered by consumers looking to purchase gaming systems. In addition, our suite did not have any DirectX 12 game. In order to address these issues, we set out to identify some modern games for inclusion in our gaming benchmarks. The intent was to have a mix of games and benchmarks that could serve us well for the next couple of years.

The updated gaming benchmark suite has both synthetic and real-world workloads. Futuremark's synthetic benchmarks give a quick idea of the prowess of the GPU component in a system. We process and present results from all the standard workloads in both 3DMark (v 2.4.4264) and VRMark (v 1.2.1701). Real-world use-cases are represented by six different games:

• Civlization VI (DX12)
• Dota 2
• F1 2017
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Middle Earth: Shadow of War
• Far Cry 5

Most system reviews take a handful of games and process them at one resolution / quality settings for comparison purposes. Recently, we have seen many pre-built systems coming out with varying gaming capabilities. Hence, it has become imperative to give consumers an idea of how a given system performs over a range of resolutions and quality settings for each game. With our updated suite, we are able to address this aspect.

In addition to re-evaluating the Hades Canyon NUC, we also processed the new suite on the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080K and the ZBOX MAGNUS EK71080, as well as the Skull Canyon NUC (NUC6i7KYK). We are also pulling in the numbers that were recorded for a couple of upcoming reviews (the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060, and the Shuttle XPC Gaming Cube SZ270R9). Before looking at the details of the new benchmarks and the numbers obtained, a summary of the specifications of the different systems is presented in the comparison table below.

Comparative PC Configurations
Aspect	Intel NUC8i7HVK (Hades Canyon)	Intel NUC8i7HVK (Hades Canyon)ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080KZotac ZBOX MAGNUS EK71080Intel NUC6i7KYK (Skull Canyon)Shuttle XPC Gaming Cube SZ270R9
CPU	Intel Core i7-8809G	Intel Core i7-8809G
GPU	Radeon RX Vega M GH Graphics (4 GB HBM2) Intel UHD Graphics 630	Radeon RX Vega M GH Graphics (4 GB HBM2) Intel UHD Graphics 630
RAM	Kingston HyperX Impact HX432S20IB2K2/16 DDR4 20-22-22-42 @ 3200 MHz 2x8 GB	Kingston HyperX Impact HX432S20IB2K2/16 DDR4 20-22-22-42 @ 3200 MHz 2x8 GB
Storage	Intel Optane SSD 800p SSDPEK1W120GA (118 GB; M.2 Type 2280 PCIe 3.0 x2 NVMe; Optane) Intel SSD 545s SSDSCKKW512G8 (512 GB; M.2 Type 2280 SATA III; Intel 64L 3D TLC)	Intel Optane SSD 800p SSDPEK1W120GA (118 GB; M.2 Type 2280 PCIe 3.0 x2 NVMe; Optane) Intel SSD 545s SSDSCKKW512G8 (512 GB; M.2 Type 2280 SATA III; Intel 64L 3D TLC)
Wi-Fi	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 (2x2 802.11ac - 866 Mbps)	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 (2x2 802.11ac - 866 Mbps)
Price (in USD, when built)	$999 (Barebones) $1617 (with SSD, and RAM, as configured / No OS)	$999 (Barebones) $1617 (with SSD, and RAM, as configured / No OS)

Futuremark 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.

Futuremark VRMark

VRMark is Futuremark's virtual reality benchmark. Its workloads are termed as 'rooms', with each one being a piece of VR content designed to require a specific level of VR performance. The VRMark Professional Edition v1.2.1701 comes with three rooms. Each room can be run either in desktop or HMD mode, with varying minimum requirements for the same workload. The benchmark results include the average FPS achieved, and a score based on the FPS. A pass or fail indicator is also provided based on whether the average FPS exceeds the required FPS. In this section, we take a look at the performance of the Intel NUC8i7HVK (Hades Canyon) on a comparative basis across the three workloads in desktop mode.

VRMark Orange Room

The Orange Room is meant to test the effectiveness of a system for handling the requirements of the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift. The recommended hardware for both VR HMDs should be able to easily achieve the desired target FPS (88.9 fps). However, in the desktop mode, the target performance is 109 fps without any frame drops. Systems benching with an average FPS lesser than that are deemed to have failed the VRMark Orange Room benchmark. The graphs below present the average FPS and score for the different systems being considered today.

Futuremark VRMark - Orange Room

Other than the Skull Canyon NUC, all the other tested systems manage to pass the VRMark Orange Room test.

VRMark Cyan Room

The Cyan Room sits between the Orange and Blue rooms in complexity. It is a DirectX 12 benchmark. Similar to the Orange room, the target metrics are 88.9 fps on HMDs and 109 fps on the desktop monitor. The graphs below present the average FPS and score for the different systems being considered today.

Futuremark VRMark - Cyan Room

Systems equipped with the GTX 1080 manage to pass the Cyan Room test. The ASRock DeskMini Z370, the Hades Canyon NUC, and the Skull Canyon NUC all score comfortably below the required 109 fps threshold. The Shuttle XPC Cube SZ270R9 narrowly misses out.

VRMark Blue Room

The Blue Room is the most demanding of the three workloads. At the time of introduction of VRMark in October 2016, no publicly available system running as sold was able to pass the test. The performance of a system in this benchmark is an indicator of its VR-readiness for future generation of HMDs. Similar to the other workloads, the passing performance metrics are 88.9 fps on HMDs and 109 fps on desktop monitors. The complexity of the workload is due to the higher resolution (5012 x 2880) and additional geometry making it necessary to increase the number of Direct3D API calls. The graphs below present the average FPS and score for the different systems being considered today.

Futuremark VRMark - Blue Room

None of the tested systems come anywhere close to getting the required frame rate for passing the Blue Room test.

Gaming Performance - Civilization VI

The Civilization series of turn-based strategy games is very popular. For such games, the frame rate is not necessarily an important factor in the gaming experience. However, with Civilization VI, Firaxis has cranked up the visual fidelity to make the game more attractive. As a result, the game can be taxing on the GPU as well as the CPU, particularly in the DirectX 12 mode.

As part of our gaming system reviews, we run the built-in benchmark at two different resolutions (1080p and 2160p), and with two different quality settings (medium and ultra).

Civilization VI (DirectX 12) Performance

The relative performance numbers across all tested resolutions and quality settings are as expected, with the Hades Canyon NUC managing to comfortably be better than the Skull Canyon NUC with its integrated graphics, but, unable to match the systems equipped with GTX 1060 and better GPUs. That said, users should be able to comfortably play the game at 1080p with medium quality settings in the Hades Canyon NUC.

The differences between the two quality settings are summarized in the table below.

Civilization VI (DX12) - Evaluated Quality Settings
Aspect	Medium	Ultra
MSAA Sample Count	4x	8x
Shadow Map Resolution	4096 x 4096	8192 x 8192
Ambient Occlusion Depth Map Resolution	1024 x 1024	2048 x 2048
Ambient Occlusion Render Texture Resolution	1024 x 1024	2048 x 2048
Terrain Synthesis Detail Level	Low Resolution	Full Resolution
Terrain Quality Level	3	4
Low Quality Terrain and Water Shaders	Yes	No
Screen-Space Reflection Passes	2	4
Video Effects Detail Level	Low	High
Clutter Detail Level	Not a Lot	A Lot
Ambient Occlusion	Disabled	Enabled
Leader Rendering Quality Level	1	3
Motion Blur for Leaders	Disabled	Enabled

Gaming Performance - Dota 2

Dota 2 has been featuring in our mini-PC and notebook reviews for a few years now, but, it still continues to be a very relevant game. Our evaluation was limited to a custom replay file at 1080p resolution with enthusiast settings ('best-looking' preset). We have now revamped our testing to include multiple resolutions - This brings out the fact that the game is CPU-limited in many configurations.

Dota 2 allows for multiple renderers - we use the DirectX 11 mode. The rendering settings are set to 'enthusiast level' (best-looking, which has all options turned on, and at Ultra level, except for the Shadow Quality set to 'High'). We cycle through different resolutions after setting the monitor resolution to match the desired resolution. The core scripts and replay files are sourced from Jonathan Liebig's original Dota 2 benchmarking instructions which used a sequence of frames from Match 3061101068.

Dota 2 - Enthusiast Quality Performance

At 720p, the Hades Canyon NUC is able to better the systems equipped with much more powerful GPUs. However, this is due to the CPU-limited nature of Dota 2 at lower resolutions. At 1080p and higher resolutions, we are back to the usual story. The ASRock DeskMini Z370 has some anomalous scores at these higher resolutions (coming in behind the Hades Canyon NUC despite having a much more powerful CPU), which we plan to look into further in our review of that PC.

Gaming Performance - F1 2017

Our gaming system reviews have always had a representative racing game in it. While our previous benchmark suite for PCs featured Dirt 2, we have moved on to the more recent F1 2017 from Codemasters for our revamp.

The supplied example benchmark (with some minor tweaks) is processed at four different resolutions while maintaining the graphics settings at the built-in 'Ultra' level.

F1 2017 - Ultra Quality Performance

The benchmark numbers follow the expected trend - the Hades Canyon NUC can't match up to the systems equipped with the NVIDIA GPUs. However, it does provide good playable frame rates close to 60 fps for 1080p even with the Ultra quality settings.

Gaming Performance - Grand Theft Auto V

GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine under DirectX 11. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU.

For our test we have scripted a version of the in-game benchmark. The in-game benchmark consists of five scenarios: four short panning shots with varying lighting and weather effects, and a fifth action sequence that lasts around 90 seconds. We use only the final part of the benchmark, which combines a flight scene in a jet followed by an inner city drive-by through several intersections followed by ramming a tanker that explodes, causing other cars to explode as well. This is a mix of distance rendering followed by a detailed near-rendering action sequence.

We processed the benchmark across various resolutions and quality settings. The results are presented below. Further down, we have the various differing aspects in the settings for each set.

Grand Theft Auto V Performance

In almost all cases, the trend is as expected. In the 1080p case with low quality settings, the performance seems to be CPU-limited, allowing the Hades Canyon NUC to match the more powerful systems. The game seems to be friendly to the Hades Canyon NUC only in the low quality settings.

Grand Theft Auto V - Evaluated Quality Settings
Aspect	720p Max	1080p Low	1080p Max	1440p VHigh	4K Low	4K High
Screen Resolution	1280 x 720	1920 x 1080	1920 x 1080	2560 x 1440	3840 x 2160	3840 x 2160
Reflection MSAA	8	0	4	4	0	8
MSAA	8	0	4	4	0	8
Tessellation	3	0	3	3	0	3
Shadow Quality	3	1	3	3	1	3
Reflection Quality	3	0	3	3	0	3
SSAO	2	0	2	2	0	2
Anisotropic Filtering	16	0	16	16	0	16
Texture Quality	2	0	2	2	0	2
Particle Quality	2	0	2	2	0	2
Water Quality	2	0	2	2	0	2
Grass Quality	3	0	3	2	0	3
Shader Quality	2	0	2	2	0	2
Soft Shadows	3	0	3	3	0	3
Ultra & Long Shadows	Y	N	Y	Y	N	Y
FXAA	Y	N	Y	Y	N	Y
PostFX	3	0	3	3	0	3
DoF	Y	N	Y	Y	N	Y
HdStreamingInFlight	Y	N	Y	Y	N	Y
MaxLodScale	1	0	1	0	0	1

Gaming Performance - Middle Earth: Shadow of War

Middle Earth: Shadow of War is an action RPG. In our previous gaming benchmarks suite, we used its prequel - Shadow of Mordor. Produced by Monolith and using the new LithTech Firebird engine and numerous detail add-ons, Shadow of War goes for detail and complexity.

The graphics settings include standard options such as Graphical Quality, Lighting, Mesh, Motion Blur, Shadow Quality, Textures, Vegetation Range, Depth of Field, Transparency and Tessellation. There are standard presets as well. The game also includes a 'Dynamic Resolution' option that automatically alters graphics quality to hit a pre-set frame rate.

We benchmark the game at four different resolutions - 4K, 1440p, 1080p, and 720p. Two standard presets - Ultra and Medium - are used at each resolution, after making sure to turn off dynamic resolution.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War Performance

Middle Earth: Shadow of War is yet another game that follows the expected template - the Hades Canyon NUC can keep the game playable at 1080p with medium quality settings. However, it can't match up with the other systems equipped with discrete GPUs at any resolution or quality setting.

Gaming Performance - Far Cry 5

Ubisoft's Far Cry 5 is an action-adventure first-person shooter game released in March 2018. The game comes with an in-built benchmark and has standard pre-sets for quality settings.

We benchmarked the game at four different resolutions - 720p, 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p. Two preset quality settings were processed at each resolution - normal and ultra.

Far Cry 5 Performance

Far Cry 5 also follows the usual template. The Hades Canyon NUC can play this game with good frame rates at 1080p with normal quality settings. It can't match up with the other discrete GPU-equipped systems at any resolution or quality setting.

Concluding Remarks

The preceding pages presented the performance of the NUC8i7HVK (Hades Canyon) NUC in select modern games. The new games are part of our updated gaming benchmarks suite that we plan to use for evaluation of mini-PCs for the next couple of years. We also presented results from the processing of the benchmarks on some modern small-form factor gaming systems.

Fundamentally, nothing much changes in terms of our previous conclusions regarding the gaming prowess of the Hades Canyon NUC. It roughly slots in-between the GTX 960 and GTX 980 in graphics performance. In GPU-limited cases, it can barely touch the performance of the GTX 1060. However, in games such as Dota 2 (which are CPU-limited at most resolutions), the extra power budget available helps the Hades Canyon NUC to come out with very good performance numbers.

I do however have to mention my disappointment in Intel and AMD for their poorly thought out (if not bordering on deceptive) naming scheme for the Kaby Lake-G dGPU – the Radeon RX Vega M. As we’ve since found out and confirmed thanks to telling Linux driver commits, while Intel and AMD are calling this GPU a Vega, it doesn’t actually include any of the core features that make up the Vega GPU architecture. Features such as Rapid Packed Math, tiled rasterization, and support for Direct3D feature level 12_1 are all absent from Vega M. The only “Vega” feature is the HBM2 memory controller, which is very important for this product given the integrated nature of Kaby Lake-G, but also not a part of the core GPU architecture. Instead, the heart of Vega M appears to be Polaris, AMD’s previous GPU architecture, which itself was a minor update to their 2014 GCN 3 GPU architecture.

Which isn’t to say that the Vega M is a bad GPU. The performance we see in all of these benchmarks speaks volumes, and this is by far the most powerful x86 system-on-package processor available today – not to mention it’s way faster than Intel’s own iGPUs. And we can even understand why Intel and AMD would want to use a Polaris-based design for this product, as the development and integration time for this chip meant that they would want to work with proven hardware first (which is why this is Kaby Lake + Polaris rather than Coffee Lake + Vega). But still, it’s an odd scenario when the dGPU being used offers a lesser DirectX feature set than Intel’s own iGPU. And at the end of the day, I don’t see how calling this a Vega GPU benefitted anyone buying Hades Canyon or Kaby Lake-G in systems today. That said, Intel claims certain performance numbers for Kaby Lake-G, and, our evaluation of the Hades Canyon NUC with real-world gaming benchmarks backs up those claims.