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Asus is the brand new, non-exclusive steward of Intel’s teeny-tiny NUC (Subsequent Unit of Computing) designs, following the previous proprietor’s exit from the market final 12 months. And, whereas Asus nonetheless desires to promote tiny, high-powered desktops to avid gamers with extra money than house, the celebrated NUC Excessive has been completely KO’d. Which means NUC followers who need to pair the tiny {hardware} with full desktop-powered GPUs are out of luck.
The ROG NUC proven off at CES is Asus’ NUC play for avid gamers, packing high-powered laptop computer parts as much as a Core Extremely 9 CPU and an RTX 4060 or 4070 cellular GPU right into a diminutive barebones desktop. However an Asus consultant instructed Fudzilla that the corporate has no plans to carry again the NUC Excessive line.
Beginning with the ninth era based mostly on Espresso Lake, the Excessive variants of the NUC design paired a detachable, upgradable NUC Compute Ingredient (housing the processor, I/O panel, and empty RAM and M.2 storage slots) with PCIe slots for a full-sized desktop GPU. This allowed avid gamers to construct a super-tiny machine with out shedding entry to high-power discrete graphics playing cards. That’s very true on the eleventh and Twelfth-gen NUC Excessive, which expanded the case and allowed for a similar full-length playing cards as an ATX desktop.
Alas, this may need been what killed the NUC Excessive. With the bigger 7.5-liter physique, the NUC Excessive 12 is barely a bit smaller than the smallest Mini-ITX case, which additionally permits for full-sized graphics playing cards. The Fractal Design Terra, for instance, is barely 10.4 liters in quantity. The NUC Excessive 13 introduced in 2022 is 13.9 liters, barely smaller than the favored Cooler Grasp NR200P Mini-ITX case. With out Intel placing within the engineering to create a brand new 14th-gen NUC Computing Ingredient, it’s not stunning that Asus determined to stay with laptop computer components for its ultra-small designs.
If you happen to’re trying to cram absolutely the most quantity of PC gaming energy right into a tiny footprint and also you don’t need to lose entry to CPU and GPU improve choices, an ITX construct appears to be your finest guess in the intervening time. Pour one out for the NUC Excessive, a really cool collection of little computer systems that appears to have outlived its relevance.
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