Hades Canyon vs Custom pc

[Douglas2k18]

Hi 

This is my first post here on the LTT forums so please excuse any mistakes I make.I know a lot of people would tell me to get an itx build/sff , but my situation is quite unique and If like to ask for your help/opinions. Basically I want to buy a new pc in a month or 2 , I'd like for it to game quite well and the NUC seems to get 40 fps in far cry 5 at 1080p maxed out which I think is good enough especially concerning how demanding it is ( I'm not a hardware expert so please correct me if I'm wrong here) , based on some reviews and benchmarks I think that the NUC is powerful enough for my gaming needs (1080p60 high-ultra) especially considering I prefer strategy titles which tax the cpu more . The main pros for me are 

1.It has 2x tb3 ports a fast charging port and enough IO to compete with a traditional atx board 

2.I can take it with me (quite useful if I wanna play with my friends/go to a lan party)

3.Convenience and a 3 year warranty 

4. This is purely subjective but I love the design of it

5.It's really quiet 

My biggest issues with it are that its not easily upgradable (still better than a gaming laptop)

It has limited cooling which means that you can't OC it by more  than 5-10% without it going  NUClear .

Basically I'm not sure if its worth it and that's why I'd like to ask the LTT forums for help.

Thanks 

[captain_to_fire]

The Hades Canyon Nuc is rather expensive at $910 and that is just barebones without storage, memory and OS. 

(i7-8809G + RX Vega M GH)

[Douglas2k18]

1 minute ago, captain_to_fire said:

The Hades Canyon Nuc is rather expensive at $910 and that is just barebones without storage, memory and OS. 

(i7-8809G + RX Vega M GH)

Yea that's why I'd like to ask about it here.

[General Winter]

11 minutes ago, Douglas2k18 said:

Hi 

This is my first post here on the LTT forums so please excuse any mistakes I make.I know a lot of people would tell me to get an itx build/sff , but my situation is quite unique and If like to ask for your help/opinions. Basically I want to buy a new pc in a month or 2 , I'd like for it to game quite well and the NUC seems to get 40 fps in far cry 5 at 1080p maxed out which I think is good enough especially concerning how demanding it is ( I'm not a hardware expert so please correct me if I'm wrong here) , based on some reviews and benchmarks I think that the NUC is powerful enough for my gaming needs (1080p60 high-ultra) especially considering I prefer strategy titles which tax the cpu more . The main pros for me are 

1.It has 2x tb3 ports a fast charging port and enough IO to compete with a traditional atx board 

2.I can take it with me (quite useful if I wanna play with my friends/go to a lan party)

3.Convenience and a 3 year warranty 

4. This is purely subjective but I love the design of it

5.It's really quiet 

My biggest issues with it are that its not easily upgradable (still better than a gaming laptop)

It has limited cooling which means that you can't OC it by more  than 5-10% without it going  NUClear .

Basically I'm not sure if its worth it and that's why I'd like to ask the LTT forums for help.

Thanks 

if size isn't an issue, naturally bigger is better since your PC will have more breathing room and space for upgrades

[RollinLower]

4 minutes ago, Douglas2k18 said:

NUClear

what have you done

 

5 minutes ago, Douglas2k18 said:

5.It's really quiet 

it's not that quiet. Gamers Nexus has some videos on the thing, and they complain about the noise it makes under load due to the very small heatsink that is cooling all the dies from the CPU, GPU and HBM.

 

you could opt in for a cheaper solution, like a Ryzen APU in a SFF ITX case like the InWin Chopin, but that would probably perform a little worse. pro's include better upgradability and stuff like that, but the NUC is and always will be smaller. that being said, the NUC is only upgradable in things that won;t really improve performance down the line. SSDs and RAM are things that won't help you get more FPS really.

in the and it is just about what you value most in your rig. if you really want the tiny formfactor and think that 40-30FPS or some lowered settings is good enough, the NUC seems like a pretty good deal for you.

[Douglas2k18]

4 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

what have you done

 

it's not that quiet. Gamers Nexus has some videos on the thing, and they complain about the noise it makes under load due to the very small heatsink that is cooling all the dies from the CPU, GPU and HBM.

 

you could opt in for a cheaper solution, like a Ryzen APU in a SFF ITX case like the InWin Chopin, but that would probably perform a little worse. pro's include better upgradability and stuff like that, but the NUC is and always will be smaller. that being said, the NUC is only upgradable in things that won;t really improve performance down the line. SSDs and RAM are things that won't help you get more FPS really.

in the and it is just about what you value most in your rig. if you really want the tiny formfactor and think that 40-30FPS or some lowered settings is good enough, the NUC seems like a pretty good deal for you.

Thanks for the quick answer , one more question though is vega m gh enough for it to get 1080p high - ultra for the next 1 or 2 years? 

[General Winter]

Just now, Douglas2k18 said:

Thanks for the quick answer , one more question though is vega m gh enough for it to get 1080p high - ultra for the next 1 or 2 years? 

not really, its not meant to be a primary gaming rig of that caliber

 

you'd be better off with a 1060 desktop/laptop at this point if you want to game with better graphics

 

really the only major benefactor of the hades canyon is its size; otherwise it gets beat by almost everything at the same price range

[GoldenLag]

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LWzh7W
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LWzh7W/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor  ($189.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock - Fatal1ty X470 Gaming-ITX/ac Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard  ($172.22 @ Newegg) 
Memory: GeIL - EVO SPEAR 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($160.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: ADATA - Ultimate SU650 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($31.99 @ Newegg Marketplace) 
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($42.89 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Asus - Radeon RX 580 8GB DUAL Video Card  ($279.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Cooler Master - Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($44.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($67.98 @ Newegg) 
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit  ($95.89 @ OutletPC) 
Total: $1086.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-06-08 02:33 EDT-0400

 

This is what you can get in terms of ITX power for what a specked intel Canyon Nuc would cost

[Douglas2k18]

Thanks y'all just one more question  about the NUC , I have seen some benches where it's close to a 1060 max q 10200 vs 10400 in firestrike and userbenchmark , but in non amd sponsored games it's around a 1050 ti , can this improve with optimisation?

[Streetguru]

52 minutes ago, Douglas2k18 said:

Thanks y'all just one more question  about the NUC , I have seen some benches where it's close to a 1060 max q 10200 vs 10400 in firestrike and userbenchmark , but in non amd sponsored games it's around a 1050 ti , can this improve with optimisation?

It probably can, but if you need a small portable PC like that you should probably just buy a laptop of some kind, with either an R5 2500U, or GTX 1050/ti or above.