IntelNUC 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: 8/16/2018I’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.UPGRADABILITYOther 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 afew 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!

Seeing that I've had the NUC8i7HVK (8809G) for 2 months now I decided I should probably write a review on it. Note that I had previously been using an AMD R2400g system I had built for my wife. Unfortunately, no matter what I tried with the 2400g I just could not get it to be stable while gaming. I spent two months troubleshooting every possible piece of hardware/software and finally just gave up and got the Hades Canyon NUC. Immediately I had a better experience with the NUC.The box that the NUC comes in is all fancy! Granted aesthetics doesn't affect your PCs performance but bonus points to intel anyway. I already had a copy of Windows 10 as well as an NVME and SATA SSD drive so all I had to do was install the memory I had purchased with the NUC. It only took about 5 minutes to unscrew the NUC case, install the memory and SSD drives then screw the case back on. Windows 10 installed stupid fast and I was at the Windows desktop in about 15 minutes. From there it did take about 20 minutes to download the remaining Windows updates but then I was good to go.One of the awesome things that Intel includes is the Driver & Support assistant software. It's a one-stop shop that takes you to a webpage that automatically scans all the drivers for your NUC hardware. If anything is out of date it shows you and gives you a link to download the newest version and install it. This is super useful as you only need to run it once a month or so. The only thing it is missing is BIOS updates which you have to go to a separate webpage to get but hopefully they will integrate BIOS updates on the same webpage in the future.Edit 6_1_2019: I wanted to update this just in case anyone wants to know to confirm that Intel now has BIOS updates through their Intel updater website AND it's done while you are in windows. Just restart the NUC and it will update to the newest BIOS and your good to go. I still think this is one of the best features of this NUC - literally any and all updates to your NUC are in one place. Super convenient and time saving.I originally purchased this for my wife to use as her PC. To be honest it is complete overkill for her needs. However, I also wanted a PC that could do some decent gaming as a backup to my main gaming system. I was a bit nervous about the AMD graphics drivers performance given all the problems that I had experienced with the AMD 2400g APU but it turns out I had nothing to worry about. The drivers in the NUC have been completely flawless from day one. I have read some other people leaving reviews on Amazon stating that they are experiencing thermal throttling on these NUCs. All I can say is that maybe they had defective units and that I have had zero issues with this. Keep in mind I have tested gaming for 3-4 hours straight and still no issues. I do have the BIOS settings set to COOL instead of QUIET. Every few minutes I will hear the fan kick up for about a minute then ramp back down to normal where I can't even hear it running. Note that even at it's highest RPM the fan is not that loud, certainly not in comparison to most 'GAMING' notebooks out there that sound like a hair dryer on full blast.Almost every game I've tested has run at 60fps solid at 1080p at maxed settings. This includes, but is not limited to StarCraft 2, Heroes of the Storm, Diablo 3, Doom (2016), Demigod, Left 4 Dead 2, Killing Floor 2, Titan Quest, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Borderlands and Borderlands 2. The only game I've played recently that I CAN'T max out are The Division and Far Cry 5. Note that I can get VERY close to maxing out all settings on these two games, just a couple of settings have to be set to medium. I suspect that I could probably play several of these games on my ultrawide monitor (3440x1440 res) that I currently use on my gaming PC and STILL play at 60fps solid with maybe some graphics settings turned down a bit.Still, this is exactly what I wanted performance wise. Basically you are getting performance that is close to, but not equal to a GTX 1060. It blows my mind that Intel was able to cram that much performance in to something of this size. Yes, it is significantly larger than all previous NUCs but it also CRUSHES all previous NUCs in gaming performance, period. If you are looking for something that has excellent gaming performance, relatively quiet fan noise in a small footprint then this is definitely for you. If anyone has any questions on this please feel free to ask me and I'll be glad to answer questions you have on this.