Intel Hades Canyon NUC8i7HVK Review: Pint-Sized Gaming Powerhouse

Throughout all of our benchmarking and testing, we also monitored how much power our test systems consumed using a power meter. Our goal was to give you an idea as to how much power each configuration used while idling and while under a heavy workload. Please keep in mind that we were testing total system power consumption at the outlet.

Despite offering performance in-line with some fairly high-end desktop system, the NUC8i7HVK is quite power-friendly. The system idles at the Windows desktop at only 14 watts and with a 100% load on the CPU, power consumption jumps to only 81 watts, which was less than the Core i3-based system we tested.

Intel Hades Canyon NUC8i7HVK Acoustic Profile

With its relatively large cooler (for a small form factor machine in this class) and power friendly default configuration, the Intel NUC8i7HVK end up being a quiet machine in the vast majority of circumstances. Users can tweak the fan profile if they choose, but with the out-of-box balanced profile, the NUC8i7HVK remains virtually silent until it is under a heavy workload. When the CPU and motherboard temperature is below 55ºC, the fans in the machine actually shut off. With typical, bursty desktop workloads, the fans in the NUC8i7HVK will spin up, but they remain quiet overall and output a dull whir. If you crank the fans up higher, they are clearly audible, but in the vast majority of circumstances, the system is well behaved and very unobtrusive.