Asus has announced its ROG NUC 2024 compact gaming PC featuring an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and a GeForce RTX 4000 GPU. This 2.5-litre little beast should give you many hours of gaming without consuming too much power, if you can afford it.
Set to release on May 24, this machine marks Asus’s entry into the compact PC market following its acquisition of Intel’s NUC (Next-Unit of Computing) business. Two models will be on offer, the first housing a Core Ultra 7 155H CPU, an RTX 4060 GPU, 16GB of RAM, plus 512GB of storage, with the second boasting a Core Ultra 9 185H, RTX 4070, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. Inside you’ll also find two DDR5 slots plus three M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 slots allowing you to vastly improve its storage capacity and potentially RAM too – using 48GB modules.
Don’t be fooled though, both CPUs are nearly identical featuring six P-cores and ten E-cores. The only difference is their 4.8GHz boost vs 5.1GHz clock speed and 28W vs 45W base power. That said, Asus allows the CPU and GPU to reach up to 65W and 130/140W respectively since the cooling system can handle it.
Despite its compact size, ROG NUC provides a hefty I/O. On the front, there are two USB 3.2 Gen 2, an SD card reader, and a headphone jack, with the back packing another two USB 3.2 Gen 2, two USB 2.0, one Thunderbolt 4, two DisplayPort 1.4a, one HDMI 2.1, plus 2.5GbE LAN. Not to forget Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. We would’ve liked more Type-C ports or an Oculink connector for external GPUs at this price, but hey this is what we’ve got. At the very least, ROG NUC 2024 supports up to 8K output or four 4K screens at the same time.
The unit measures just 270mm x 180mm x 50mm, and you can sit it horizontally or stand it vertically. There’s also the ROG Aura Sync lighting if you want some of that bling to brighten your day. It’s quiet the visual step up from what we saw at CES.
Regarding pricing, the Core Ultra 7 plus RTX 4060 variant will set you back ¥11,999 (£1,301), with the Core Ultra 9 plus RTX 4070 asking for ¥14,999 (£1,627). While you can get more performance at this price on a regular desktop, you can’t beat this size without paying more. Definitely a product for specific users.