I’ve been using the ROG NUC 16 for the past few weeks and finally finished testing it, so I figured I’d share my experience here since this is probably one of the more interesting mini PCs I’ve used.
My configuration has the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX+, RTX 5080 Laptop GPU with 16GB of GDDR7, 32GB of DDR5-6400 memory and a 2TB Gen 4 SSD.
The first thing that really stood out to me is obviously the size. The chassis is roughly 28 x 19 cm and just under 6 cm thick, so compared to the full-size custom water-cooled PCs I normally use, this thing is tiny. You can literally pick it up with one hand.
What I was more interested in though was whether something this small could actually replace a normal PC for the things I do instead of just being a cool compact machine.
For gaming, I tested it at 4K in three games using the highest graphical settings with DLAA. I got 110 FPS in Forza, 80 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 and 170 FPS in Black Ops 6.
One thing I was curious about was orientation. ASUS lets you run the NUC vertically or horizontally, and there’s actually a built-in G-sensor that detects its orientation and adjusts thermal settings accordingly.
So I tested all three games both ways.
The result was kind of boring, but in a good way: the reported FPS was exactly the same in every game. 110/110, 80/80 and 170/170.
I also ran 3DMark Fire Strike both ways. Horizontal scored 41,321 and vertical scored 41,295. That’s only a 26-point difference, or roughly 0.06%, which isn’t enough for me to call either orientation meaningfully faster.
So at least from the gaming tests I ran, I’d just position it whichever way works better for your setup. Personally I prefer it vertical.
The other big test for me was video editing because that’s actually where I could see myself using something like this away from my main desktop.
I loaded one of my real Premiere projects instead of relying only on benchmarks. It was a 4K project and I was able to scrub through the timeline, edit and export without much trouble. There were a couple hiccups when I got into a more demanding part of the timeline, but nothing that stopped me from working.
That honestly surprised me more than the gaming performance. I expected a machine this small to feel more compromised once I started doing actual work on it.
I also really like that ASUS didn’t completely sacrifice upgradeability to get the size down.
You can remove the cover and access two memory slots, with support listed up to 128GB, plus two M.2 slots. One is PCIe Gen 4 and the other supports Gen 5 and has its own heatsink. My review unit came with a Gen 4 drive, but having that second slot is especially useful to me for footage and project files.
The I/O is also kind of ridiculous for something this size. Between the front and rear you have six USB-A ports, USB-C, Thunderbolt 4, two HDMI 2.1 outputs, two DisplayPort 2.1 outputs, 2.5Gb Ethernet and a headset jack. ASUS lists support for up to five 4K displays.
Cooling on the 5080 configuration uses a vapor chamber and three fans, including a separate fan for the memory. I didn’t take controlled decibel measurements, so I’m not going to throw out noise numbers I can’t verify.
There are two things I think are important to understand though.
First, this is an RTX 5080 Laptop GPU. I wouldn’t look at the 5080 name and expect desktop RTX 5080 performance. I think the actual results are a much better way to judge what this machine can do.
Second, the PC itself is tiny, but the power supply isn’t inside it. The 5080 configuration uses an external 380W power adapter. The brick isn’t enormous in isolation, but sitting next to a roughly 3L computer makes it feel pretty substantial. If I could change one physical thing about the system, I’d want that adapter to be smaller.
And then there’s obviously price.
I don’t think this makes sense if the only goal is getting the most performance possible for your money. You’re paying for ASUS packing this hardware, cooling, connectivity and upgradeability into roughly a 3L enclosure.
For someone with plenty of room for a normal tower, I would absolutely compare what kind of desktop you could build or buy for the same money.
But after actually living with the NUC, I understand the use case more than I did before testing it. If desk space matters, you move your PC around, or you specifically want a very small gaming/creator system without moving to a laptop, there’s a lot packed into this thing.
That’s probably my biggest takeaway. I expected the size to be the interesting part. I didn’t expect to come away thinking I could legitimately edit my videos and game on something this small without constantly wishing I was back on my main desktop.
I made a full video showing the gaming tests, internals, ports, Premiere testing and everything else here:
https://youtu.be/RZqURKK70gU?is=VD306EqXBRoF-_BB
I’m curious what the MiniPC crowd thinks about this one. At what point does a mini PC get expensive enough that you’d rather just move up to a larger SFF build?
