With the end of the NUC Extreme, Asus introduces the impressive ROG NUC, ushering in a new era for the world of desktop gaming.
Asus is the new, non-exclusive overseer of Intel for the tiny NUC (Next Unit of Computing) after the previous owner exited the market last year. And while Asus still wants to offer tiny, high-powered desktops to gamers who have more money than space, the famous NUC Extreme has been retired for good. That means NUC fans who want to pair the tiny hardware with "full desktop-powered GPUs" are out of luck.
The ROG NUC unveiled at CES is Asus' attempt to win over gamers, packing powerful laptop components up to a Core Ultra 9 CPU and an RTX 4060 or 4070 mobile GPU into a small barebones desktop. However, an Asus spokesperson told Fudzilla that the company has no plans to bring back the NUC Extreme series.
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Starting with the Coffee Lake-based ninth generation, the Extreme versions of the NUC combined a removable, upgradeable NUC Compute Element (which houses the processor, I/O panel, and empty RAM and M.2 storage slots) with PCIe slots for a full-size graphics card. This allowed gamers to build an ultra-small PC without losing access to discrete graphics cards. This was especially true for the 11th and 12th generation NUC Extreme, which expanded the chassis to accommodate the same full-length cards as an ATX desktop.
Unfortunately, that may have been what killed the NUC Extreme. With a larger 7.5-liter chassis, the NUC Extreme 12 is only slightly smaller than the smallest Mini-ITX case, which also allows for full-size graphics cards. For example, the Fractal Design Terra is just 10.4 liters in volume. The NUC Extreme 13 announced in 2022 is 13.9 liters, not far behind the popular Cooler Master NR200P Mini-ITX. With Intel not investing in the engineering to create a new 14th-generation NUC Computing Element, it's no surprise that Asus has decided to stick to laptop parts for its ultra-small designs.
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If you're looking to pack the absolute maximum of PC gaming power into a small space and don't want to miss out on CPU and GPU upgrade options, an ITX build seems to be the best option for now. Raise a glass to the NUC Extreme, a very interesting line of small computers that seems to have outgrown its relevance.
Information source: https://www.pcworld.com/
