Asus’ tiny 2.5-liter gaming NUC tentatively starts at $1,629 in the US

The Asus ROG NUC. | Image: Asus

When Asus rescued Intel’s NUC brand of compact computers from the dumpster, I held retired anticipation that the institution mightiness also revive Intel’s ambitious miniature gaming PCs. It did, but hole for a small sticker daze — these systems whitethorn outgo arsenic overmuch oregon much than a comparable gaming laptop.

The company’s website currently lists 2 models of the ROG NUC, with what Asus tells america are tentative prices of $1,629 and $2,199. The entry-level exemplary sports an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics, 16GB of 5600MHz DDR5 RAM and 512GB of NVMe SSD storage, portion the precocious config bumps that up to an Core Ultra 9 185H, RTX 4070, and 32GB / 1TB of RAM and retention respectively.

Since you tin easy find Asus’ fashionable Zephyrus G14 and G16 laptops with akin specs for that terms oregon little — contempt besides getting a artillery and surface — these aren’t precisely the barebone fund gaming picks that an Intel gaming NUC could sometimes person been successful the past.

Image: Asus The ports of the Asus ROG NUC.

But you bash get decent connectivity successful a container conscionable 2 inches thick. There are six USB-A ports, 4 of them astatine 10Gbps speeds, an SD Express 8.0 paper reader, a Thunderbolt 4 larboard with up to 12V accelerated charging for USB-C PD devices, 3.5mm headset, and 2.5Gbps Ethernet, successful summation to 2 DisplayPort 1.4a sockets and an HDMI 2.1 port. Wirelessly, there’s an Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1690i and Bluetooth 5.3.

Me, I would person liked much USB-C ports — and you’ll enactment that it uses a 330-watt outer DC powerfulness brick. It besides comes with the vertical basal you spot successful the representation atop this story.

We inactive haven’t seen what it looks similar wrong yet, but there’s a azygous fastener connected the rear to popular unfastened the sheet truthful you tin swap RAM and adhd SSDs astatine a minimum. It comes with 3 M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4x4 slots, truthful adding tons of speedy retention should beryllium easy.

Don’t expect Asus to revive Intel’s modular gaming NUCs like the Beast Canyon and Ghost Canyon, by the mode — it told Fudzilla successful January that the NUC Extreme enactment is gone.