Marking ASUS's first gaming-oriented NUC PC release since inheriting the NUC mantle from Intel, the ROG NUC 970 is a capable small form factor PC that will do well for 1080p/1440p gaming, albeit at a relatively high price tag. 

In October 2023, Intel officially handed over its Next Unit of Computing (NUC) product lines to ASUS. where moving forward, ASUS would be responsible for the manufacture and sales of Intel's 10th to 13th generation NUC product lines, as well as the development, manufacture and sales of all future NUC products. As a quick recap, the NUC line-up of mini PCs were first introduced by Intel back in 2013, and firmly established the brand as one of the market leaders for small form factor PCs.

With the takeover, ASUS has continued to build on the legacy of the NUC line-up with products such as the NUC 14 Pro and NUC 14 Pro+. In this article, ALKtech takes a look at the newly released ROG NUC 970, ASUS's first gaming-oriented NUC offering bearing the Republic of Gamers (ROG) moniker. Targeted at enthusiasts looking for a powerhouse of a gaming PC in a compact form factor, the media review unit that I was sent packs Intel's range-topping Core Ultra 9 185H processor, and is paired with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile GPU. Read on to see if this mini PC is any good!

Summary of Specifications: ASUS ROG NUC (RNUC14SRKU9189A3I)

• Processor: Intel Core Ultra 9 185H
• Memory: 32GB (16GBx2) Samsung DDR5 5600 RAM
• Storage: 1TB Samsung PM9A1 NVMe SSD
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile GPU (8GB GDDR6 VRAM)
• Audio: Realtek ALC256
• Ethernet: Intel I226-V 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet
• Wireless: Intel Killer WIFI 6E AX1690i + Bluetooth 5.3
• Power Supply: 330W power adapter
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Home
• Official ASUS product page: https://rog.asus.com/sg/desktops/mini-pc/rog-nuc/

Do note that as of the time of writing, ASUS Singapore is selling the RNUC14SRKU9189A0I variant of the ROG NUC 970, which as far as I can tell, is identical to the RNUC14SRKU9189A3I media review unit that I was sent for this article. From some internet sleuthing, the RNUC14SRKU9189A3I seems to be a SKU destined for the UK market, and I'm guessing that ASUS HQ sent ASUS Singapore the UK variant of the ROG NUC 970 simply due to the fact that Singapore and the UK both share the same type of power plug (Type G).

Packaging & Accessories

For the ROG NUC 970's packaging, ASUS has gone for the usual black and red colourway that has come to be associated with the Republic of Gamers brand. On the rear of the box are stickers that provide a summary on the mini PC's specifications.

Removing the outer sleeve reveals an inner box, which has a lid that is held in place with a magnet for a "premium" unboxing experience.

ASUS has included the following accessories with the ROG NUC 970:

• 330W power brick with corresponding power cord
• Spare ROG logo masks (for the ROG NUC's illuminated ROG motif)
• Warranty information leaflet
• Regulatory information leaflets
• Intel Core Ultra 9 case badge
• PC stand

The included stand is sturdily built, being made out of a combination of plastic and metal, and affords end-users additional flexibility in terms of how they'd like to position the ROG NUC 970 on their desks.

Aesthetics & Physical Features

The ROG NUC 970 is constructed entirely of matte black plastic, where on the top side, ASUS has included an illuminated ROG motif with RGB lighting effects that can be configured via ASUS's Armoury Crate software application.

Ventilation openings are in no short supply with the ROG NUC 970, being found on all sides of the mini PC.

On the bottom of the ROG NUC, it can be seen that ASUS has employed two blower-style cooling fans for the purposes of heat dissipation.

In terms of front I/O connectivity, ASUS has included a SD8.0 card slot, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports and a 3.5mm audio combo jack.

Over on the rear, we get two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, one 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port and one Thunderbolt 4 port. The said Thunderbolt 4 port supports fast charging capabilities and the DisplayPort 2.1 standard for graphics output - do note that the said graphics output is by means of the mini PC's integrated Intel Arc graphics, which is a feature of the Core Ultra 9 185H processor. We do also get a HDMI 2.1 FRL port and two DisplayPort 1.4a ports – these two ports are associated with the NUC 970’s discrete NVIDIA RTX 4070 mobile GPU. To round things off, we get a port for the power adapter, as well as a Kensington lock slot.

Service Access

Gaining access to the insides of the NUC 970 involves pressing down on the latch pictured above, and sliding off the top lid.

You’ll then have to undo a screw on the rear I/O area of the NUC 970, before sliding out the bottom assembly and disconnecting a single cable for service access.

As can be seen, the ROG NUC 970 comes with three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, of which one slot is populated by a preinstalled Samsung 1TB NVMe SSD. We do also get two DDR5 SODIMM slots, which are pre-populated with two 16GB DDR5 5600 SODIMM modules for a total of 32GBs of RAM. As of the time of publishing this review, the ROG NUC 970 supports a maximum of 64GBs of RAM.

It’s great to see that the CMOS battery is easily accessible too, where it’s located in one of the corners of the mini PC's motherboard.

Benchmarks & Test Setup

To put the ROG NUC 970 through its paces, the following benchmarks were run:

• Cinebench R23
• CrystalDiskMark 8.0.5
• Cyberpunk 2077 v2.12 In-game Benchmark (1440p)
• F1 23 In-Game Benchmark (1440p)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider In-game Benchmark (1440p)

The PC was tested on the SRMTL357.0041 BIOS release, with no tweaks made to the stock BIOS settings.

It’s worth noting that the ROG NUC 970 comes with three user-configurable power modes – Silent, Performance and Turbo. The said power modes can be configured either within the BIOS, or via the preinstalled Armoury Crate software – for the purposes of testing the NUC 970, all tests were run on the default Performance power mode

Cinebench R23

As can be seen, the ROG NUC 970 attains a multi-core score of 18652, and a single-core score of 1713.

CrystalDiskMark 8.0.5

The Samsung PM9A1 NVMe SSD that comes with the ROG NUC 970 is a PCIe 4.0 x4 part, and is advertised by Samsung to have sequential read speeds of up to 7000MB/s, and sequential write speeds of up to 5200MB/s.

Cyberpunk 2077 v2.12 In-game Benchmark

At the 1440p resolution on the "Ultra" preset, with ray tracing disabled and all forms of upscaling (e.g. DLSS) disabled, the ROG NUC 970 puts out a respectable average FPS of 54.6,5 with a minimum FPS of 45.84 and a maximum FPS of 69.37.

F1 23 In-game Benchmark

With F1 23's in-game benchmark on the 1440p resolution, the ROG NUC 970 achieved an average FPS of 43, a minimum FPS of 37 and a maximum FPS of 52. The benchmark was carried out on the "Ultra High" detail preset with DLSS disabled, and ray tracing set to "High".

Shadow of the Tomb Raider In-game Benchmark

Rounding up the gaming benchmarks is Shadow of the Tomb Raider, where the ROG NUC 970 attains an average FPS of 51 on the 1440p resolution, with all graphics settings turned up to the maximum (including ray tracing), and upscaling disabled.

Thermals, Power & Acoustics

The above thermal and power draw results were obtained via HWInfo64’s sensor readouts while running F1 23’s in-game benchmark on the Performance power mode. As can be seen from the results, the Core Ultra 9 185H processor ran pretty toasty with an average CPU package temperature of 94.5 degrees Celsius, where it exceeded 100 degrees Celsius several times and even hit a maximum temperature of 103 degrees Celsius during benchmarking. The GeForce RTX 4070 mobile GPU on the other hand, ran comparatively cooler with an average GPU temperature of 72.2 degrees Celsius and an average GPU hotspot temperature of 81.4 degrees Celsius, which isn’t a bad showing.

A brief note on acoustics, I found the fan noise of the NUC 970 to be acceptable while under load – to my ears, I couldn’t discern a difference in fan noise levels while on the Silent and Performance modes under load, while the Turbo mode yielded slightly more fan noise that the prior two power modes.

Conclusion

To sum up, the ASUS ROG NUC 970 is a premium mini PC offering that is targeted at gamers looking for a small-form factor PC that can game at good framerates on most modern titles at the 1080p and 1440p resolution. It feels well built, and comes with a good assortment of connectivity and I/O options. I do wish however, that the processor cooler performance could have been better, as under load, the Core Ultra 9 185H processor ran at temperatures between 80 to more than 100 degrees Celsius, as per the results shown in the Thermals, Power & Acoustics section of this article.

The price tag of this gaming mini PC might be hard to swallow too - as of mid-August 2024, the ROG NUC 970 is available to purchase for $3139 Singapore dollars from ASUS Singapore's official store. As a price yardstick, the same ROG NUC can be purchased from the ASUS US e-store for $2199 US dollars.

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The mini PC featured in this article was a review unit provided on loan from ASUS Singapore.