ASUS ROG NUC 16 Debuts: 3-Liter AI Powerhouse With RTX 5080 and Intel Arrow Lake
It's been three years since Intel essentially handed the keys to the Next Unit of Computing (NUC) kingdom to ASUS via a licensing deal, and the company continues to crank out new models. Its newest variant is the ROG NUC 16, a compact system that pairs up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 GPU Intel's Arrow Lake-HX platform.
More specifically, the ROG NUC 16 is built around an Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processor, which is the top SKU in Intel's recent Arrow Lake Refresh. The 290HX Plus wields 24 total cores consisting of 8 performance cores clocked at 2.7GHz to 5.5GHz and 16 efficient cores clocked at 1.8GHz to 4.7GHz. It also boasts 40MB of L2 cache and 36MB of L3 cache, and an onboard NPU capable of up to 13 TOPS.
Naturally, ASUS is playing into the AI angle.
"Compact yet powerful, the ROG NUC 16 raises the bar with AI-enhanced performance... For AI workloads such as building a personal AI agent or running local LLM models, the ROG NUC 16 is more than capable, delivering up to 1334 AI TOPS and 16GB of dedicated GDDR7 memory for the GPU, to handle local AI computing," ASUS says.
The ROG NUC 16 supports up to 128GB of DDR5-6400 memory. It also comes standard with a 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 solid state drive (SSD) and can accommodate a second PCIe 5.0 SSD for more and faster storage, if needed.
Other specs include Intel Killer Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless connectivity, a 2.5Gbps LAN port, and a plethora. The front I/O along features two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, and a 3.5mm combo audio jack. Several more ports are found around back, including Thunderbolt 4. There's also a Kensington Lock.
ASUS says it upgraded the thermal design as well, with three 102mm x 102mm x 17mm fans crammed into the 3-liter chassis, and 12% more thermal coverage for the CPU.
"To reduce thermal throttling and maintain stability during extended gaming or video editing sessions, the ROG NUC 16 also includes a dedicated SSD heatsink that lowers operating temperatures from 72°C to 59°C compared to a system without a heatsink," ASUS says.
According to ASUS, the thermal design is efficient enough to keep the sound level at under 38 dBA, which is "comparable to a library," even under full workloads.
Finally, the ASUS ROG NUC 16 features a patented removable stand that lets users orient the system vertically or horizontally.
The ROG NUC 16 will be available this month, with a Moonlight White Edition arrive in June. There is no mention of pricing just yet.
