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

When Asus rescued Intel’s NUC model of compact computer systems from the dumpster, I held out hope that the corporate may additionally revive Intel’s formidable miniature gaming PCs. It did, however put together for a little bit sticker shock — these techniques could value as a lot or greater than a comparable gaming laptop computer.

The corporate’s web site at the moment lists two fashions of the ROG NUC, with what Asus tells us are tentative costs of $1,629 and $2,199. The entry-level mannequin sports activities an Intel Core Extremely 7 155H, Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics, 16GB of 5600MHz DDR5 RAM and 512GB of NVMe SSD storage, whereas the superior config bumps that as much as an Core Extremely 9 185H, RTX 4070, and 32GB / 1TB of RAM and storage respectively.

Since you possibly can simply discover Asus’ standard Zephyrus G14 and G16 laptops with comparable specs for that worth or much less — regardless of additionally getting a battery and display — these aren’t precisely the barebone price range gaming picks that an Intel gaming NUC may typically have been up to now.

However you do get respectable connectivity in a field simply two inches thick. There are six USB-A ports, 4 of them at 10Gbps speeds, an SD Categorical 8.0 card reader, a Thunderbolt 4 port with as much as 12V quick charging for USB-C PD units, 3.5mm headset, and a couple of.5Gbps Ethernet, along with two 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’d have favored extra USB-C ports — and also you’ll observe that it makes use of a 330-watt exterior DC energy brick. It additionally comes with the vertical stand you see within the picture atop this story.

We nonetheless haven’t seen what it seems like inside but, however there’s a single button on the rear to pop open the panel so you possibly can swap RAM and add SSDs at a minimal. It comes with three M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4x4 slots, so including numerous speedy storage needs to be simple.

Asus tells us it hasn’t firmed up when the ROG NUC will ship, however that it will in all probability come alongside or shortly after non-gaming NUC 14 Professional Plus fashions it plans to launch in April or Could.