Intel NUC 8 Performance-G Kit (NUC8i7HVK) - Core i7 100W, Add't Components Needed

I've been on the fence deciding to buy this kit since it was introduced earlier this year. More rightly so due to the added cost of memory and the NVMe drive (neither of which I had on hand). At that neighborhood, one might consider a laptop 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!

I was skeptical, since the Vega GPU are not exactly blazing fasts, but this little thing packs a punch. CPU wise, it has a quite powerful one; I was able to run 3d software, music production software, Photoshop, Premiere and other software that was quite demanding for the CPU and it did work just fine; faster than my desktop with a 7th gen i7. The GPU is also good; if you plan to play in 1080p, at medium detail, most of the modern games I tried, did work great. Very few did slow down; and beside Battlefield one and Assassin's Creed Odissey; everything I threw at this machine was handled very well, including Forza Horizon 3 and Witcher 3. The machine is overclockable; that may give you some improvements but keep in mind that the thermals on this unit are already at the max. I tried to push the CPU to 4.3 GHz and the GPU by 10% from the standard values and the machine would just crash; so either you overclock the CPU, or the GPU. This is due to the design of the machine: both CPU and GPU (and VRAM) are on one die, which means that there is only one solid copper vapor chamber, shared among them, and that in short means that if the CPU gets hotter, the GPU get that heat too, so you can't disperse the heat from both chips at the same time in the same amount. The increase in framerate on GPU overclock is quite noticeable, same for CPU benchmark score if you overclock the CPU, so unless you are planning to convert this NUC in a water cooled device, you have to choose if you care more about FPS increase in gaming, or CPU intensive apps. At standard values, non-overclocked, the device works just fine; the fan rarely goes on, so it is very quiet. You can tweak the fan speed to make it go faster and push with overclock; although if you increase too much the speed, it sound like a small jet turbine; really umpleasant to hear, especially if you don't wear headphones. One thing that did surprise me was that it runs VR perfectly. I tried it with the Oculus rift and it works like a charm with all the games I tried. If you plan to buy a small device for VR and gaming; you can't go wrong with this one. As far as downside: the price is clearly one. For the performances you get, you can build your own micro pc, and pay 30% less than the price of this unit; but even the smallest ATX build can't be as small as this. Also the PSU is external, so you get a brick that is bigger than the computer itself, but that's OK, considering that you can hide the brick behind a desk. This device is the perfect unit for traveling; for dorms, for any place that has very little space available; it does almost anything you want to do; and while not a beast for gaming, it is running almost everything at 1080p 30fps; which equal to a console quality level in the end, but with the advantage of being as small as a VHS tape, and be a full computer running windows (or linux, your pick). Keep in mind that the base unit does not have RAM or storage, so you have to factor that in the final price (about 1200 USD once completed). Again, this is not for everyone; this is an expensive toy for specific subset of PC users. I am looking forward to the next variant of the NUC, with better graphics hopefully, and a better handling of thermals, to allow for more extreme overclock.

Runs the games I play (mainly Rocket League and WoW) at a smooth frame rate (100+ fps). Small and light weight. Quiet. Portable. Would buy it again if I had to.

Le cambié dos veces el WiFi 6 y ahora 7. Le puse un T500 también y jala perfecto. Último Windows 11 y es Gen 8. Vamos en la 16. Hasta gaming con Assasin Creed Valhalla. Lo bello de que no seatid integrado en un chip. Como en la Mac o equipos Snapdragon. Las PC duran más si k viertes desde un inicio en una buena configuración actualizable.

Awesome power

HBM2 graphics memory. I-don't-even-remember-how-many-zillion ports. Massive cooler and an actual CPU overclocking potential as a result. Can turn your TV on and off. Can have your TV turn the NUC on and off. Very capable BIOS. Amazing design. When you turn the RGB lighting off (it's 3-zone, by the way), you would never tell it's sort of a gaming PC. If you don't need too much graphics power (this will still run something like GTA5 in 4K very well, though), or if you have an external GPU, I would definitely suggest that you consider this marvel of engineering.

Llevo casi 2 años con este equipo, anteriormente era usario mac de casi 11 años y siempre me acostumbre a cambiar el disco y memoria de mis mac, y puesto que las ultimas fueron un fiasco para mi, carisimas con muchas broncas de manufactura, esta NUC fue una oda a todo geek. Tienes un excelente procesador y tarjeta para el dia a dia, en un inicio si llegue a correr juegos como batman arkham night, etc. pero realmente la uso como servidor de PLEX y Squeezebox. Tienes todas las ventajas de poder ir incrementando la ram y disco y sobre todo escoger el nivel de performance que querras. asi que le puse discos samsung y ram kingston. Se convirtio en un pequeño centro multimedia para el ocio y a veces trabajo. Le eh cambiado la ram de 8, 16 y ahora 32GB, con discos en RAID 0 y ahora 2 discos de diferente capacidad y rendimiento para poder tener un disco con toda mi biblioteca de audio y video, mas el disco de arranque. Super versatil y recomendada si eres una persona que le gusta meterle mano a sus equipos