MiniPCs

Asus makes gaming PCs. And Asus makes mini PCs. And now that the company has largely taken over Intel’s NUC line of compact computers, it’s bringing those two things together with the launch of the first ROG NUC compact gaming desktop.

The little computer has a 2.5 liter chassis that houses up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 Meteor Lake processor, up NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 graphics, and enough cooling power to allow those components to consume more power than they would in a laptop for better sustained performance.

For example the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and Core Ultra 9 185H processors that are available in this little computer are designed to be 45-watt chips made for laptops and mini PCs. But Asus says they can run at up to 65 watts in the ROG NUC. And the company uses 115-watt NVIDIA GPUs for the little computer, but allows them to run at up to 140 watts.

The ROG NUC measures 270 x 180 x 50mm (10.6″ x 7.1″ x 2″), and features RGB lighting, because… gaming. But it also has a more console-like design than a typical business-professional 4×4 NUC system, but it’s got a reasonably flexible design: you can lay it down horizontally or prop it up vertically with the help of a stand.