The Ultra-Compact PC, Defined

Need a powerful PC for work-for-home or small business use, but can’t stand the thought of a big, bulky desktop tower on your desk? Then go for an ultra-compact NUC PC, which uses a 4.5″ square case. If that doesn’t translate for you immediately, let’s just say it’s really small!

While Intel created the NUC standard back in 2013, it dropped a bombshell on the industry ten years later, when it announced in 2023 that it was abandoning further development of NUC models. That does not, however, mean the end of the NUC form factor. In fact, Asus has taken over Intel’s NUC production line, and many manufacturers had already jumped on the NUC bandwagon in recent years. That may be one of the main reasons Intel left the market – others had figured out how to do it better, and cheaper too, often using its competitors processors!

This Month’s Build, Featuring AMD!

For December 2024, we recommend a pre-built model that is honestly such a fantastic deal that there’s no reason to build your own NUC using a barebones chassis, which would require that you also buy the memory, solid-state drive, and operating system, and spend a whole lot more money in the process. Instead, we turn to MinisForum, which produces a system featuring AMD’s stellar Ryzen 9 7840HS 8-core, 16-thread CPU with built-in Radeon 780M graphics . This system includes 32GB of DDR5-5600 RAM and a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 solid-state drive, which comes pre-loaded with Windows 11 Pro. By the way, this system also has WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, and support for up to four monitors thanks to its array of HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB4 outputs.

Want to turn your NUC into an all-in-one, interactive workstation? Then pick up the awesome touchscreen monitor in our optional products section later in this guide, which has a rear mount to attach the NUC and truly streamline your desktop! With all that said, if you decide you want extreme power but don’t need something quite this small, check out the other options in our Small Form Factor Build Guides, which leverage the power of midrange and high-end desktop-class processors.

Final Thoughts

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