Asus’ newest gaming NUC mini PC is powered by a Ryzen X3D chip

The Intel NUC household of tiny mini PCs was forward of its time in some ways—and Asus apparently agreed, provided that the corporate took the model off Intel’s arms in 2023. The new ROG NUC collection below Asus’ gaming model is sort of a alternative for Intel’s gaming-focused NUC Extreme, albeit with out the discrete graphics possibility. And humorous sufficient, the most recent Asus NUC has a shock inside: an AMD processor.

We heard from Asus again at CES 2025 that the corporate was seeking to increase its NUC (“Next Unit of Computing,” in case you’re questioning) choices with AMD choices. The ROG NUC 2025 (often known as the ROG Magic 9 Mini) has already been out there for some time, however a brand new variant is coming with a well-known processor: the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D. This is technically a laptop computer chip, like all NUC machines and most mini PCs use, but it surely’s additionally a phenomenally highly effective one, hanging out in a few of the strongest workstation laptops and mini PCs.

And sure, it’s just a little unusual to see a tool with the “NUC” branding with an AMD processor. It jogs my memory of the primary time I noticed a Sonic the Hedgehog recreation on a Nintendo console. (If you’re studying this and your beginning yr begins with “2”, that was an enormous deal again within the day, I promise.)

This new AMD-powered ROG NUC seems to be a China-only launch in the meanwhile, in response to VideoCardz. It’s paired to an Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU (the laptop computer model to slot in the tiny dimensions of the NUC case), 16GB of reminiscence (DDR5-5600, barely slower than different fashions) and a 1TB SSD. At launch it prices 15,000 yuan (roughly $2,100 USD).

Whether we’ll see this come to different international locations isn’t identified in the meanwhile—there’s numerous discuss “economic climate” each time anybody asks about availability or costs, together with Asus, once I talked to representatives final week. “Economic climate” is company communicate for Trump tariffs, by the way in which.