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- Asus is set to introduce the ROG NUC 2025 this year, integrating Nvidia’s RTX 5080 laptop GPU
- The laptop GPU will come equipped with 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM
- It’s anticipated to bear a premium price in comparison to the current ROG NUC 970
Nvidia’s RTX 5000 series of graphics cards were formally announced at CES 2025 earlier this month, and while the release timeline for the RTX 5080 laptop GPU in gaming laptops is still uncertain, Asus has confirmed that one of its next-generation mini-gaming PCs will feature Team Green’s latest hardware.
According to Edge Up Asus, the Asus ROG NUC 2025 mini gaming PC will leverage Nvidia’s RTX 5080 laptop GPU, paired with the Intel Core Ultra 9 (Series 2) ARL-HX processor, which boasts 24 cores and 24 threads. This configuration is intended for a high-end mini-gaming PC, expected to outperform devices like Apple’s M4 Mac mini regarding gaming, but at a likely hefty price.
The existing ROG NUC is equipped with RTX 4000 series GPUs, and this year’s iteration is set to elevate performance to new heights – we can expect benchmarks for the desktop RTX 5080 and 5090 series GPUs by the end of this month, with the laptop GPUs likely following shortly after.
What can we anticipate regarding its pricing?
I’ve never considered myself a betting person, but I’m nearly convinced that the new Asus ROG NUC will come with a high price tag, offering configurations now featuring the RTX 5080 and 64GB of DDR5 RAM – 2023’s NUC 970 uses the RTX 4070 with a starting price of $1,399 / £1,629, so expect this year’s variant to approximate that figure… or potentially be much higher.
In comparison to the M4 Mac mini, the ROG NUC 2025 will outperform in terms of capabilities, but this does not imply a clear supremacy for the NUC. The M4 Mac mini will undoubtedly be significantly more affordable as it starts at $599 / £599 / AU$999, and the performance it provides at that price is hard to match.
A more realistic comparison between Apple’s Mac gadgets and the imminent ROG NUC would be the M4 MacBook Pro, especially the version that includes the M4 Pro chip with a 14-core CPU and 20-core GPU, along with 24GB of unified memory, although, of course, it isn’t a mini-PC. Even so, it would still not compare favorably since Asus’ system operates on Windows 11, while the MacBook runs macOS, and Apple still has considerable ground to cover regarding game optimizations on its operating system, particularly at elevated resolutions.
The ROG NUC will also gain an advantage from Nvidia’s new DLSS 4 Multi-Frame Generation, which will significantly enhance performance across various games, aside from the sole raw performance of the GPU – thus, even though it will be a pricey mini-PC, it will probably be a more suitable option for gaming compared to the M4 Mac mini and the MacBook Pro.
Should you consider purchasing it? I would suggest against it, as it will likely be excessively pricey when compared to much more affordable standard-sized gaming PCs that are sufficiently powerful for seamless performance.
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