ASUS ROG NUC 9 Mini Is Small But Mighty With 3D V-Cache Ryzen 9 And RTX 5070

ASUS is following up on its 2025 ROG NUC with an AMD-powered variation, but the new machine is a China exclusive and something of a mixed upgrade. The good news is that the new model of the 2025 ROG NUC -- dubbed the ROG NUC 9 Mini -- boasts AMD's impressive mobile flagship Ryzen 9 9955HX3D processor. Compared to the Intel Arrow Lake-HX-powered Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX included with the original model, the AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D is a solid upgrade in CPU performance in all but a few workloads that happen to favor Intel. But while this new model is dubbed "Mini", it's using the exact same 3 liter chassis used on the Intel-powered 2025 ROG NUC, and for some reason only supports NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 graphics, stopping just short of the original's GeForce RTX 5080.

That's the only major downgrade, though. The AMD model supports up to 4TB of NVMe Gen 5 storage over the original's 2TB, and both support up to 96GB DDR5 RAM, though the AMD model is limited to 5400 MT/s instead of the Intel model's 6400 MT/s. Besides those changes, the new ROG NUC seems to be virtually identical to the old one, and is priced similarly to the base RTX 5060 model of the Intel variation, with its pre-sale price of 14,999 yuans being equivalent to roughly $2105 USD. Meanwhile, the 2025 ROG NUC starts at $2099 USD for an Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX paired with RTX 5060, which would make the AMD model a more compelling value if it comes Stateside with a similar MSRP.


Overall, the ASUS ROG NUC 9 Mini is a compelling variation of the 2025 ASUS ROG NUC. While there are some trade-offs, most of them are minor. It just raises the question why the ASUS ROG NUC 9 Mini is restricted to the GeForce RTX 5070 while the Intel model is not, considering both CPUs have similar TDPs

This was a pretty good spot by 孤城Hardware (roughly translating to Lonely City Hardware) on Twitter, and hopefully the pre-sale starting today goes well enough for ASUS to consider bringing this AMD NUC variation to the United States.

Image Credit: ASUS via 孤城Hardware (@realVictor_M) on Twitter/Weibo