Intel Hades Canyon NUC (NUC8i7HVK)

[Sim0n]

i to would like to see what it can do with a egpu 1080 maybe even a 1060 to see how the internal gpu does vs a 1060. the 1080 would be a nice upgrade down the road if someone did buy this and found the gpu slow later on down the road

It's not really aimed at anyone that would be willing to sit it next to a 1080Ti in a eGPU dock. IMVHO

[gagaga]

I'd avoid this until Intel sort their firmware and drivers out.

I've got a whole ton of the cheapo NUCs as media PCs which work well enough, but my experience of the more expensive once has been terrible.

I've a Skull Canyon one - after less than six months the fan sounds like gravel (this seems to happen to all of them).

Worst is the NUC7I5BNH - i5-7260u.

It has thunderbolt that is terribly implemented - you can't charge through it, and it does not work correctly with a Lenovo thunderbolt doc that works just fine with 3 laptops (Dell and Lenovo) I've used with it. It does not sleep properly, intermittently drops the screens and other devices, and keeps the doc powered up at all times (including the screens).

Power management is terrible - it won't sleep attached screens (HDMI and Displayport via the USB C) so I have to turn it off instead of leaving it ticking away. That's when it will turn off - it usually just boots back into windows instead of shutting down.

Worst however is the BIOS updates. These are so badly implemented that it kills Bitlocker - they wipe the TPM each and everytime so the device goes into lock down and the drive is unusable. For most users (who are sloppy at backing up keys) whis would mean total loss of data and a re-install, luckily I had a backup of the keys. I've used Bitlocker for years on more than 10 devices, and this is the only one with this problem. There's a manual work - around, but why the hell sould I need to fudge it?

Stick with Mini-itx from a vendor that does this stuff all the time.

[3dcandy]

I'd avoid this until Intel sort their firmware and drivers out.

I've got a whole ton of the cheapo NUCs as media PCs which work well enough, but my experience of the more expensive once has been terrible.

I've a Skull Canyon one - after less than six months the fan sounds like gravel (this seems to happen to all of them).

Worst is the NUC7I5BNH - i5-7260u.

It has thunderbolt that is terribly implemented - you can't charge through it, and it does not work correctly with a Lenovo thunderbolt doc that works just fine with 3 laptops (Dell and Lenovo) I've used with it. It does not sleep properly, intermittently drops the screens and other devices, and keeps the doc powered up at all times (including the screens).

Power management is terrible - it won't sleep attached screens (HDMI and Displayport via the USB C) so I have to turn it off instead of leaving it ticking away. That's when it will turn off - it usually just boots back into windows instead of shutting down.

Worst however is the BIOS updates. These are so badly implemented that it kills Bitlocker - they wipe the TPM each and everytime so the device goes into lock down and the drive is unusable. For most users (who are sloppy at backing up keys) whis would mean total loss of data and a re-install, luckily I had a backup of the keys. I've used Bitlocker for years on more than 10 devices, and this is the only one with this problem. There's a manual work - around, but why the hell sould I need to fudge it?

Stick with Mini-itx from a vendor that does this stuff all the time.

Exactly this for me. With Am4 based m-itx boards from around £85 plus a 2400G a decent build can be under £500

[whatif]

I have had a variety of NUCs from the i3 3217, i3 4010, i5 4260, i5 5260, i3 6100, i5 6260 and finally the Skull Canyon NUC and just about all used mostly as HTPCs
That is not including several others I set up for my family and friends (also a good way for me to upgrade by selling them the older one)
Never had any real issues with them (as some others have mentioned here) and some have run for 24/7 for over a year.
The only problem I did experience is a bit of excessive fan noise (no clicking or loud noise, it just sounded a slight grating and I was unsure how much longer it would run) coming from the i3 4010 after it had been running non-stop for at least 2 years and it was a simple fix to replace the fan (luckily I got sent a new one for free).

Recently won a Hades Canyon and only just finished loading Windows onto it on the weekend and still setting up the rest of the programs and things, so no chance yet to do any gaming (I have 2x dual TV Tuners I like to run with WMC as it works well with my WMC remote, et cetera).
The first thing I noticed is that the Hades is sooo much quieter no matter what I am doing on it when compared to the Skull.
Instead of one small fan over a relatively small (due to size constraints) heatsink, the Hades has 2 fans that are almost twice the size with a much bigger heatsink means they will not have to spin up as fast or make soo much noise when working harder.
I have an Akito Node eGPU with an R9 390 used with the Skull, but have yet to try it out as I want to give the Hades a go first and see how it performs.
I may even try out an Aorus Extreme GTX 1080 in it later.
Will try to do an update when I find out anything.

[tinbin]

Nice compact small pc but we bit expensive

[Sim0n]

Hi Tarinder,

Any updates on this?

[Sim0n]

Hi Tarinder,

Any updates on this?

I guess not! *sigh*