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ASUS has unveiled the new most powerful mini-PC of the year, the ROG NUC 16, priced at $4400. The compact 3-liter PC is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processor and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 notebook graphics card. The device weighs 3.12 kg. The black version will start at $4400, while the Moonlight White variant will cost about $4700.
The specifications are impressive for a device of this size. The Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus has 24 cores – 8 high-performance and 16 energy-efficient – and 40 MB of L2 cache. The RTX 5080 laptop form factor graphics card is based on NVIDIA’s Blackwell architecture, supports DLSS 4.5 with Multi Frame Generation, and delivers up to 1,334 AI TOPS across CPU, GPU, and NPU. The system supports up to 128 GB of DDR5-6400 RAM via two CSODIMM slots, and drives are connected via one M.2 PCIe 5.0 and two PCIe 4.0 slots, for a total capacity of up to 9 TB. Lower-end configurations with RTX 5070 Ti, 5070, and 5060 graphics cards are also available – all on the same processor.
The set of interfaces is complete: Thunderbolt 4, two HDMI 2.1 ports, two DisplayPort 2.1 ports, four USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A, Wi-Fi 7 with Bluetooth 5.4, and a 2.5GbE network card. When paired with the recently announced ROG Xreal R1 AR glasses, NUC 16 can form the basis of a portable gaming setup with a high refresh rate that fits into a backpack – though the total cost of both devices will exceed $5200.
The cooling system has received a noticeable upgrade: three fans and a dual steam chamber provide 12% more heat transfer area than the previous generation. According to ASUS, the device does not exceed 38 dBA under full load, which is quite quiet for this level of power consumption, which is supplied through a 380W external power supply. The dimensions of the case are 282.4 × 189.5 × 56.5 mm, which is smaller than the PlayStation 5. The design provides screwless access to memory and drive slots, as well as a new removable stand to replace the previous screwed version.
ASUS’s own benchmarks show that the 2026 model performs about 2.3% better in 3DMark compared to its predecessor, the ROG NUC 15. ASUS is positioning the ROG NUC as an AI-capable workstation on par with a gaming device, emphasizing localized inference tasks, generative AI applications, and accelerated content creation. This positioning reflects the general industry trend of selling gaming hardware as hybrid AI systems. The black version should be available by the end of May, and the white one in June.
For those who want the most powerful mini-PC on the market, the ROG NUC 16 delivers. At $4,400, the ROG NUC 16 is not just a gaming mini-PC. It is a declaration of how much a person is willing to pay for a combination of performance and compactness.
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