Summary
- ASUS ROG NUC finally adopts AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D (16c/32t), dominating multithreaded tasks.
- Includes NVIDIA RTX 5070 mobile 8GB, 32GB DDR5, 1TB PCIe 5.0 SSD, upgradeable to 96GB RAM.
- 40Gbps USB4, dual HDMI 2.1 & DP 2.1, WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.4; pre-order 14,999 CNY (~$2,100).
A lot of high-powered mini PCs out there are powered by Intel chips. And while I’m not an Intel hater, I’m more of an AMD guy. Which is why I’m particularly happy to see that ASUS is launching a brand new ROG tiny PC—powered by one of the best mobile AMD chips out there.
ASUS has unveiled a new version of its compact ROG NUC gaming desktop powered by an AMD processor. This is probably the first time we’ve seen a NUC with an AMD chip. Sure, we’ve seen AMD tiny PCs a few times, even from ASUS under its ExpertCenter range. But not specifically a NUC, and that’s mostly because that brand used to belong to Intel. The company released NUC computers from 2012 to 2023, when it gave the brand to ASUS, which has been taking the liberty of experimenting a bit more with said lineup. And now, it’s moving away from featuring Intel hardware exclusively.
The computer packs an AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D processor—a 16-core, 32-thread mobile processor based on the “Fire Range” architecture. Its Intel counterpart in its other most recent ROG NUC model, the Core Ultra 9 275HX, holds a slight advantage in single-core tasks, but the AMD chip consistently pulls ahead in most multi-threaded performance benchmarks. It also has an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 mobile graphics card equipped with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. The computer itself comes with a generous 32GB of DDR5-5600 RAM and a 1TB PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSD. And it can take up to a whopping 96GB of RAM via its SODIMM slots if this doesn’t happen to be enough.
The computer features a 40 Gbps USB4 Type-C port, a 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, six 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, dual HDMI 2.1 outputs, and dual DisplayPort 2.1 outputs. Meanwhile, your networking needs are is handled by the latest WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 standards, alongside a standard Ethernet port.
The computer is currently priced at a pre-order special of 14,999 CNY (approximately $2,100) in China, after which the retail price is expected to increase by about 1,000 CNY ($140). These computers almost always see a US launch, but you can have a rough idea of how much this will set you back. It’s expensive, but also, you get probably some of the best hardware you can pack in such a small profile, short of something like the Mac mini.
Source: Liliputing