Intel NUC Kit NUC8i7BEH (Bean Canyon) Review
By John Burek & Tom Brant
Best Compact Desktop$430 (as tested)Intel's midyear mini PC entry in its Next Unit of Computing (NUC) line is a winner for deploying as a near-invisible little grinder for office tasks, light media work, or robust signage and kiosk applications. These models sport 8th Generation Core i3, i5, and i7 chips plus a dual-drive storage scheme that lends surprisingly powerful loadout options in such a small chassis. For the kinds of applications that require the smallest possible desktop PC, these new NUCs advance the state of the art.Read the Full Review
Core i7 and Iris Plus graphics offer hefty computing power for such a small PC.
Thunderbolt 3 support.
Easy access for upgrades.
Can hold two drives (one M.2, one 2.5-inch).
Cost of storage, memory, and (possibly) OS needs to be factored into overall cost.
Intel's latest bare-bones NUC Kit offers surprisingly robust loadout options in a tiny chassis, though it's a pricey prospect once you factor in the cost of components and an OS.
Does grinding up the contents of "Bean Canyon" give you enough to brew "Coffee Lake"? We're darned if we know, but we do know that Intel's latest mini PC entry in its Next Unit of Computing (NUC) line (code-named "Bean Canyon" under development) is a winner for deploying as a near-invisible little grinder for office tasks, light media work, or robust signage and kiosk applications. As ever throughout NUC's many generations, this NUC family (starts at $275; $430 as tested) is dominated by bare-bones SKUs to which you add memory, storage, and OS. These latest-gen models sport 8th Generation Core i3, i5, and i7 chips, plus a dual-drive storage scheme that lends surprisingly robust loadout options in such a small chassis. For the kinds of applications that require the smallest possible desktop PC, these new NUCs advance the state of the art. But as ever, whether preconfigured or bare-bones, you pay a premium for all that smallifying.
Top End, But Bare Bones
The Bean Canyon NUC we tested is Intel's NUC Kit model NUC8i7BEH, Intel's top-end bare-bones version in this line. Intel is also offering a fully configured Windows 10-equipped configuration, dubbed the "Intel NUC 8 Home," for $840 and fitted out with the OS, a Core i5 U-series chip, a 256GB Intel NVMe M.2 SSD, and 8GB of DDR4 memory.
Our test model, which features a black-and-grey color scheme that isn't particularly snazzy but is easy to blend in, lacks storage, RAM, or an OS. On the other hand, it does include the stepped-up Core i7-8559U, a robust four-core/eight-thread CPU with a 2.7GHz base clock. An eight-thread solution in a PC this size is quite the feat, looking back at NUCs of the past.
Best for Light Gaming, 4K or 5K Digital Signage
Intel NUC Kit NUC8i7HVK (Hades Canyon)
Best for Budget Buyers, Conference Rooms, Digital Signage
Intel NUC Kit NUC6CAYS
Best for Serious Gamers, LAN Partiers
Best for Space-Strapped Content Creators
Apple Mac mini (2018)
Best for Digital Signage, Low-Power Applications
ECS Liva Z2 Mini PC
Best for Architects, Engineers, Financial Analysts
HP Z2 Mini G4 Workstation
$867.38 at HP
When looking at any NUC PC, or similar bare-bones models from the likes of Zotac or Shuttle, you need to factor in the cost of the parts you need. If you need a fresh copy of Windows 10, tack on $100; RAM will be according to the cost of DDR4 SO-DIMMs (these days, about $45 for 8GB), and storage scales simply according to what you need, especially as you have more flexibility in this NUC than in most PCs this size.
That's because the drive situation here allows for two installed drives, in two types. You get an M.2 slot on the mainboard, which will accept either SATA or PCI Express NVMe drives. (The M.2 slot also supports Intel Optane Memory modules, for caching a hard drive.) Also or instead, a high-capacity 2.5-inch hard drive, or a 2.5-inch SATA SSD, could go into the 2.5-inch bay that's nested under the bottom cover. The combination of an M.2 drive and a hard drive can easily allow for 6TB or more of combined storage, if you're willing to spend the money, with 2.5-inch laptop-style hard drives and SSDs topping out at 5TB and 4TB, respectively. Installing a 2.5-inch drive is as easy as sliding it into the bay, onto pre-positioned data and power connectors; installing an M.2 requires a little more finesse and a Phillips screwdriver.
The Bean Canyon NUC shares this storage configuration not only with previous NUCs, but also with other competing bare-bones PCs that are designed to be upgradable, including the ECS Liva Z2. It's one of their key advantages over more powerful pre-built PCs like the HP Z2 Mini workstation or the Apple Mac Mini, whose components aren't as easy to access.
As for the NUC's memory-install scheme, like with the storage you get a bit more flex than you might expect. The two SO-DIMM slots support both DDR4 laptop-style DIMMs at speeds up to 2,400MHz. Older DDR3 memory modules you might have lying around won't work. You can install up to two modules of DDR4 at 16GB each.
Connectivity and Ports
The port loadout is typical for a NUC-size mini PC. You get two USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports up front. The yellow one can also charge USB devices, supplying up to 1.5 amps. Next to these USB connectors are a power button, a drive-access indicator light, and an audio in/out combo jack. On the left edge, you get a microSD card slot and a Kensington-style security lock slot. The wireless connectivity comprises 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0.
The rear edge is home to the lion's share of the connectors: two more USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a USB Type-C port that also supports Thunderbolt 3, an HDMI port, and an Ethernet jack. The HDMI output is fed from the CPU's on-die Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655.
The Iris Plus graphics chips are reasonably powerful for graphics processors that borrow from the main system memory instead of using their own. They're a cut above the UHD Graphics integrated graphics processors in mainstream laptops and desktops.
Now, despite the single HDMI, this NUC can support up to three external displays at resolutions up to 4K: one connected to the HDMI port, and two more daisy-chained off the DisplayPort interface, which is routed through the NUC's Thunderbolt 3 port. (You may need a dongle to make this happen.) For, say, a takeout restaurant looking to display its entire menu on TVs, three 4K panels should be plenty, and this would be a robust solution. (Indeed, a model with less than a Core i7 would suffice.)
A Potent Performer
The combination of Intel Iris Plus graphics and a Core i7 CPU means that the NUC can be a competent performer when it comes to everyday computing tasks. We compared its benchmark scores with those of a few other mini PCs, from the $250 ECS Liva Z2 mentioned earlier to the previous-generation "Hades Canyon" NUC, which costs more than $1,000 in the configuration we reviewed. (That model has a special Core i7 CPU that is paired on die with an AMD discrete graphics solution. It's also a fair bit larger than this NUC, and adorned with a light-up skull on the lid.)
Since the Bean Canyon NUC is bare-bones, we installed our own 8GB of SO-DIMM-style RAM and a 240GB Plextor M.2 PCI Express SSD to get the system up and running. Because you could install any amount of memory (up to 32GB) and a huge variety of storage configurations, the numbers that follow aren't necessarily representative of what you can expect if you install different amounts of memory or different types of storage than we did.
The configurations of the Bean Canyon NUC and our comparison machines are in the chart below.
Our first test, PCMark 10, is a holistic performance suite developed by the PC benchmark specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). It simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. We use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet work, web browsing, and videoconferencing. The test generates a proprietary numeric score; higher numbers are better.
Here, the Bean Canyon NUC offered nearly equal performance to the Hades Canyon NUC we tested, a gaming-focused pre-built machine that starts at $899. This suggests that it will be excellent at both web browsing and more static tasks like displaying complex arrays of digital signage. Meanwhile, the cheaper, Pentium-based ECS Liva Z2's much lower score of 1,634 suggests mini PCs of its ilk (many use Pentiums or Celerons) are suitable only for very basic set-it-and-forget-it tasks. Because there is no macOS version of PCMark 10, the Mac mini ($729.00 at Amazon) isn't represented on this test.
Next is Maxon's CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads.
The Cinebench results closely parallel the PCMark 10 scores, although in this case the Bean Canyon barely came out on top. That's a testament to the multithreaded capability of its Core i7 CPU. Since Cinebench also has a macOS version, this test also shows us that both NUC Kits are more capable on CPU-intensive tasks than the entry-level, Core i3-based 2018 Apple Mac mini we reviewed.
Graphics Tests
Finally, to evaluate graphics performance, we use the 3DMark testing suite. It measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. We run two different 3DMark subtests, Sky Diver and Fire Strike, which are suited to different types of systems. Both are DirectX 11 benchmarks, but Sky Diver is more suited to laptops and midrange PCs, while Fire Strike is more demanding and made for high-end PCs to strut their stuff. The results are proprietary scores.
The Iris graphics in the Bean Canyon NUC helped it command a significant advantage on both subtests compared with the Liva Z2, but it's still no match for the dedicated AMD graphics with discrete VRAM in the gaming-focused Hades Canyon NUC kit.
We were unable to run our second standard graphics test, Unigine's Superposition benchmark, on the Bean Canyon NUC. And neither Superposition nor 3DMark have macOS versions, so the Mac mini is again absent from these charts.
A Powerful Mini PC, a Tricky Calculus
Over the years, Intel's NUCs have both changed with the forward progress of Intel's mobile chip lines and have been defined, as end-user values, by their bare-bones nature.
The Bean Canyon NUC, as tested here, is no different. The calculus involved in determining a good value here remains the same: Windows will still cost you $100 or so if you want a legit license installed, and RAM is dictated by the market value of memory of the day, as well as the sometimes premium that the NUC PCs dictate because they use SO-DIMMs rather than full-size DIMMs.
In other words, because you need to add these components yourself, you need to pay full freight; you don't get the benefit of bulk-buying and economies of scale that system makers do. That adds a bit of additional tax on NUC buyers who are buying in bare-bones singles rather than preconfigured models, or in bulk from a VAR.
Indeed, bare-bones NUCs have never been particularly good parts-for-money values in those onesie-and-twosie circumstances, and this model is no exception. With a Windows 10 Home license, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB M.2 SSD, you're looking at a spend of about $700 for this NUC and those parts, plus the work of installing the OS (using an external DVD drive, or from an installer USB key). Indeed, we might hold out for the NUC 8 Home configuration simply to reduce the configuration and installation hassles inherent in installing Windows, Windows updates, and drivers.
That said, if a tiny, no-pushover PC is what you need, equipped with powerful ancillary connectivity like Thunderbolt 3, this latest NUC is a peppy little powerhouse that defines the state of the art in very small desktop systems.
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About John Burek
John is PCMag's executive editor for hardware. A veteran of the popular tech site and magazine Computer Shopper from 1993 to 2017, he has covered just about every kind of computer gear—from the 386SX to 18-core processors—in his long tenure as an editor, a writer, and an advice columnist. He served as Computer Shopper's editor in chief from 2008 to 2017. He has also worked in the science-book field and as an editor of computer-tech books for Paramount Publishing. A lifetime New Yorker, John is a graduate of New York University and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
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About Tom Brant
As a hardware analyst, Tom tests and reviews laptops, peripherals, and much more at PC Labs in New York City. He previously covered the consumer tech beat as a news reporter for PCMag in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, where he rode in several self-driving cars and witnessed the rise and fall of many startups. Before that, he worked for PCMag's sister site, Computer Shopper, where he occasionally dunked waterproof hard drives in glasses of water. In his spare time, he's written on topics as diverse as Borneo's rain forests, Middle Eastern airlines, and big data's role in presidential elections. A graduate of Middlebury College, Tom also has a master's degree in journalism and French Studies from New York University. Follow him on Twitter @branttom.
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