Software and BIOS

Before diving into all of the performance testing I did I thought it would be best to check out some of the software that the Hades Canyon NUC has including the BIOS. It’s funny normally I only take a look at the UEFI or BIOS for motherboards, but the NUC ends up being in a class of its own where we have to basically do a full motherboard review, CPU review, GPU review, and look at everything overall. Its actually been a long time since I have been in any Intel BIOS, after they dropped their motherboard lineup I haven’t had the need. So I was really happy to see that things have continued to progress and the NUC has a proper UEFI that can use a mouse. In fact, it is all mouse use and Intel calls it Visual BIOS.

The landing page is a lot like the EZ modes from some motherboards. You have a boot order option over on the left as well as graphs that show current temperatures, fan speeds, and voltages. Every page including this one has a screenshot option, settings, and a way to save and exit. Then from there you can click into the advanced options up top or use the drop-down to get directly to the advanced page you want. The right arrow on the landing page gets you to a system info page where you can see board CPU and other info.

So the main page in the advanced mode is a lot like a normal BIOS landing page. You can see memory and PCU information as well as change the BIOS clock. The second tab is the Devices tab and here you can get to settings for USB, SATA, PCI, Lighting, and other Onboard Devices. I love how simple it is to navigate with the tabs and drop down options for every setting. The lighting area has software controlled on by default but you can turn that off and set each one manually without having to run the windows based software.

The Cooling tab has a lot of the same graphs we saw earlier but here you can set up the fan profiles. Sadly for all of the graphs and visual theme here, the fan profiles are all setup old school. A nice fan speed graph would be a lot easier for this setup. Especially with this being the only place you can get into fan speed settings.

The performance tab is basically where all of the overclocking settings are tucked away. It is split up into three categories for CPU, GPU, and Memory. You do have full control of ratios, core voltage as well as voltage offsets, and the BCLK. Scrolling down you also get access to turbo ratios for all four CPU cores as well as other turbo performance options. Honestly going in I was hoping the graphics tab would have a list of options even if they were just for the Intel iGPU but all you get is the option to turn it on or off or to set it to auto. Memory overclocking is similar to the CPU though, for our testing, I am just running the XMP profile on our memory but you can adjust voltages and manually set clock speeds and timings if you prefer to do that.

The security tab allows you to set up passwords for admin, user, and supervisor functions. This is important if the NUC is being used in a business environment or maybe if you have kids who might get really nosy in the BIOS. Beyond that, you can turn things like Intel’s Trusted Platform on and off and thunderbolt security options. The power tab does have the one primary power setting option, but it is on max performance by default. This is more of an option for mobile, not a device plugged into the wall like the NUC is. Beyond that, you have a few options on how to handle power loss and remote wake options. This leads you into the boot tab as well. This tab has three split tabs where you can get into boot priority and configuration as well as a few security options during booting.

Ironically it wasn’t until the end that I found one of the best options in the Visual BIOS. Right up top, there is a white bar that when clicked lets you search for ANY option in the bios and have direct access without having to flip through tabs. Talk about a time saver.

So when you are getting everything installed including all of the drivers, getting the GPU drivers installed is an interesting one. I don’t know I can ever get used to seeing the Intel logo in the middle of what is clearly the AMD software.

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With the drivers installed, like with a normal AMD dedicated GPU you do have full access to WattMan for overclocking via the Radeon software. This allows you to see and control clock speeds in all of the different states as well as turn up power limits and watch temperatures. That said fan control for the GPU and for the NUC as a whole is all linked together. In fact from what I could find there is no way to control the fan profiles other than in the BIOS even when using Intel’s own overclocking software. The Intel Extreme Tuning Utility does work with the NUC to control both CPU and the integrated Intel GPU as well. Combined with Wattman you have most of the control needed.

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Then the NUC has another program dedicated just to its lighting controls. Here you can set the lighting for the skull on top as well as the power button and the three other status lights. There are profiles for running and in S3 hibernation modes for some things like the skull. Beyond being able to set any color and its brightness, there are also drop down options to use any of the LEDs to show the status of other parts of the NUC like temperatures, CPU usage, hard drive usage, and so on.

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