Intel NUC Kit - NUC8i7HVK-8th Gen Core™ i7-8809G VR Enabled-Radeon, RX Vega M GH graphics

Awesome power

Got this to replace my 3rd gen i5 Nuc which I was using as a download rig. However playing 4K media from that was a disaster. The chip just disnt have enough power. Since I already having a gaming rig, the replacement for the current NUC had be something with a small foor print. Considered the Zotac MEK1 however its foot print is quite a lot more than the NUC. I am using this as a download rig and HTPC. The system is capable enough to handle any and all media that you might want to play. However HDR passthrough using MadVR is a pain to get to work. Perfoemance wise its great for such a small box. Dont ever intend to game on this so dis not test the same. Cooling is great and the fan rarely kicks in even though profile is set to Cool. Overall happy with the produ t. The only concern is that the seller OnlineKing didnt send a sealed unit.

Now these days this is old generation PC, and high price.

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.

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.

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.

Sólo se la recomiendo a los entusiastas de las PC. Es cara, hay que comprarle la RAM, SDD y OS pir separado. Yo la compré porque las gaming laptops con gtx1060 y cores i7 de 8va están mucho más caras que esta miniPC. El rendimiento es increíble, silenciosa, los juegos jalan super bien en medium o high settings a 1080p/60fps. No es un reemplazo para mi PC de escritorio pero es perfecta para llevarmela al trabajo o para ponerla en tu sala en una TV. Comparándola con consolas es más potente que una PS4 Pro pero no tanto como una Xbox One X.

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.