Intel NUC13 Extreme Raptor Canyon Review: Sizzling SFF Performance Powerhouse

GPU Performance : Gaming Workloads

The evaluation suite for gaming performance of SFF systems was updated in 2022 Q4 with a focus on sampling a wide variety of games with different GPU performance requirements. Eight different games are now benchmarked at two different quality settings and four different resolutions. Average frame rates as well as 95^th percentile frame rates (where available) are presented.

• Civilization VI (DX12)
• Strange Brigade
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Borderlands 3
• Cyberpunk 2077
• F1 2022
• World of Tanks

Most system reviews take a handful of games and process them at one resolution / quality settings for comparison purposes. Recently, we have seen many pre-built systems coming out with varying gaming capabilities. Hence, it has become imperative to give consumers an idea of how a given system performs over a range of resolutions and quality settings for each game. Our test suite is able to address this aspect.

Civilization VI

The Civilization series of turn-based strategy games is very popular. For such games, the frame rate is not necessarily an important factor in the gaming experience. However, starting with Civilization VI, Firaxis cranked up the visual fidelity to make the game more attractive. As a result, the game can be taxing on the GPU as well as the CPU, particularly in the DirectX 12 mode.

The resolution options are altered from the default as per the following depending on the desired rendering width and height. These settings were arrived at after extensive testing across multiple systems to produce repeatable and consistent results.

Two sets of quality settings are evaluated, with the departures from the default configuration detailed below.

The 2x performance advantage is seen at higher resolutions for both quality settings. At lower resolutions, there is possibly a CPU-limiting aspect preventing scaling of graphics performance.

Strange Brigade (DX12)

Strange Brigade s a third-person shooter developed by Rebellion Developments (more widely known for games such as the Sniper Elite and Alien vs Predator series). It includes both DX12 and Vulkan executables, and we opt to evaluate the DX12 one. The game is known for not being particularly taxing on the GPU, making it a good fit even for processing even on integrated GPUs at low resolutions and quality settings.

The rendering resolutions and quality settings for Strange Brigade are controllable from a single options file.

Strange Brigade is relatively easy on the GPU, as even the RTX 2070 is able to push past 60fps at 4K with ultra settings. Overall, the Raptor Canyon NUC enjoys a 2x advantage over the other systems in the list.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V hit the shelves back in 2015, but the title continues to remain a good benchmark for GPUs. Even modern mid-range ones struggle to hit 60 fps with high quality settings and higher resolutions. One of the drawbacks is that DirectX 12 support is not available. So, we opt to benchmark the title with DirectX 11.

Grand Theft Auto V allows configuration of quality via XML file as well as through the command line. We use the command line to control the rendering resolution as well as the quality, as shown in the table below. Arguments common to both quality settings [ -ssa, -anisotropicQualityLevel 16, -cityDensity 1, -fxaa 1, -lodScale 1, -particleShadows, -pedLodBias 0.2, -reflectionBlur, -shadowLongShadows 1, -textureQuality 2, -vehicleLodBias 0, -txaa 1, and -samplingMode 0] ] are not explicitly included below.

At lower resolutions, the GPU is not the limiting factor, and the Raptor Canyon NUC has only a slight edge over other systems. However, at 4K resolution, we are back to the 2x advantage predicted by the synthetic benchmarks.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption from Rockstar Games is a open-world cowboy genre title. It has a wide array of impressive graphics and eerily realistic features. Benchmark settings for the two quality levels are similar to the ones applied to GTA V.

The behavior is similar to GTA V, with lower resolutions not showing the 2x advantage, but higher ones bringing it out.

Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 is a first-person shooter / looter title from 2K Games. The evaluated quality settings for Borderlands 3 correspond to the 'Medium' and 'Badass' presets selectable from the Visuals menu in the game. The rendering resolution is also directly controllable from the menu. We use DX12 as the preferred graphics API for this title.

The 2x performance advantage is seen consistently across all resolutions in Borderlands 3.

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing game from CD Projekt Red. It uses the company's in-house REDengine 4 game engine with extensive ray-tracing support. The built-in benchmark can be processed at different quality settings, out of which we chose two corresponding to 'Medium' and 'Ultra'. In addition, disabling of ray-tracing, and DLSS / FSR was also ensured.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a very demanding game, and even the RTX 4080 Ti can't hit 60 fps at 4K with the quality amped up. We do see the Raptor Canyon enjoying a significant performance advantage at all resolutions and quality levels.

F1 2022

Aside from keeping up-to-date with the Formula One world, F1 2022 also includes ray-tracing support. It is graphically quite demanding at higher quality settings, and keeps a useful racing-type workload in our benchmarks. We opt to use the in-game benchmark, set to run at Medium and Ultra settings (ray-tracing disabled) on the Bahrain track in dry weather. Benchmark data is taken over a one-lap race.

The performance advantage for the Raptor Canyon NUC is 2x at higher resolutions, but comes down a bit at lower ones which are more CPU-bound.

World of Tanks

World of Tanks is a popular multi-player online game that allows players to take control of a range of military-based armored vehicles. From a benchmarking perspective, the developer (Wargaming) has a 'World of Tanks enCore' demo application with features of the game engine used in the actual game. The latest release used in our test suite includes ray tracing support that is explicitly turned on in our customization of the built-in 'Medium' and 'Ultra' settings.

Despite being a fairly easy game on the GPU, the title still shows twice the graphics performance for the Raptor Canyon NUC across the board.