Intel NUC enough to play Mario Kart Wii?

[justAsking]

Hi,

I am currently thinking about getting a htpc, in particular an Intel NUC7I3DNHE with the following hardware:

CPU: Intel Core i3-7100U, 2x 2.40GHz, 15W TDP
RAM: 2x 4GB DDR4
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 620

It would be used mostly for watching movies on a TV but occasionally I want also to play Mario Kart Wii with 2 or 4 players. Lowest settings and between 1x-2x native resolution (so max. 720p). Would this mini PC be able to handle it (don't really care about resolution but it should be around 30fps)?

If not, I think then it should run Mario Kart Double Dash with 4p and 720p and 60fps fine right?


At first I wanted to get the NUC6CAYH with:

CPU: Intel Celeron J3455, 4x 1.50GHz
RAM: 1x 8GB DDR3L
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 500

However, then I thought maybe it would be better to get the i3 to occasionally play mario kart.

What do you think, could I play Mario kart Wii in multiplayer with the i3 Nuc?

[Helios]

720p? Maybe.

4p? Probably not.

that GPU is your bottleneck on the i3. And the CPU will also be a bottleneck but not as much.

Everything will be a severe bottleneck on the celeron.

[justAsking]

Thank you for your reply.

Would it be much better with the following hardware or still not that much because CPU and GPU are still limited to 15Watt TDP?

Intel Core i5-7260U, 2x 2.20GHz
Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640

[Helios]

Absolutely zero experience with iris plus GPUs, so no idea.

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

Just keep in mind that, unless you definitely want to have this PC built in the next couple months, next year would provide much better parts for a small form-factor Dolphin-capable HTPC build.

In particular, both the Hades Canyon NUC (Kaby Lake + Radeon) and desktop Raven Ridge (Zen + Vega APU) should be available by Q2 2018.

[sirdaniel]

Code:

Intel Core i5-7260U, 2x 2.20GHz
Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640

With this you will get smooth playing WII kart at 2x scaling, i doubt it will do 3x but looking at performance charts you will lack only of 15 to 10% of gpu power.

Code:

CPU: Intel Core i3-7100U, 2x 2.40GHz, 15W TDP

RAM: 2x 4GB DDR4
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 620

GPU is just enough for 2x scaling and nothing more. But what about CPU?
Well, i also have Kabylake but i5, which clocks much higher because turbo boost. BUt wait, base frequency of my 7200u is just 0.1 Ghz higher. So to test for you how i3 would cope with kart i disabled turbo by simple tool, all clocks verified.
So after very simple testing in first stage, i would say that @up rig would be playing Wii kart with 60 fps but not even one fps more. Of course expect fluctuations, but with recent win OS, recent drivers and recent doplhin version game would be playable