Intel NUC 11 Extreme Review – Ultra-Compact High-End Gaming NUC

Gaming – Horizon Zero Dawn and Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition  

Like the other games that we tested, Intel’s NUC 11 Extreme is not limited by Intel’s i9-11900KB processor. Nvidia’s RTX 3060 is the limiting factor. If you want stronger gaming performance from this NUC, you will need a stronger graphics card. With this system integrated 650W PSU, you can fit a stronger GPU within this barebones PC, so upgrading shouldn’t be a problem. 

Horizon Zero Dawn is a popular PC release from Sony, and 60 FPS gameplay is easy at 1080p and 1440p with Nvidia’s RTX 3060 graphics card. At 4K, 60 FPS gameplay is possible with the right settings and some tweaks to the game;’s resolution scaling. 

Using our “Optimised settings” from our Horizon Zero Dawn PC performance analysis, which involves lowering Shadows, Reflections, Clouds, and Ambient Occlusion to Medium settings, and an 80% resolution scale, framerates of over 60 FPS can be achieved at almost all times using this test system. 

  

Moving onto Metro Exodus’ PC Enhanced Edition, it becomes clear that the NUC 11 Extreme’s i9-11900KB processor’s gaming performance is limited by Nvidia’s RTX 3060. Intel’s NUC 11 Compute Element board is incredibly capable when it comes to gaming workloads, so much so that we would need a stronger graphics card to truly test the CPU’s limits. 

With Metro Exodus’ PC Enhanced Edition, Nvidia’s RTX 3060 graphics card is a limiting factor. That said, Medium Quality and RT Settings, when combined DLSS’ performance mode, does make 4K 60 FPS performance possible in many areas of the game.