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″ (10cm) square motherboard. In case that doesn’t translate for you immediately, it’s really small!

The NUC platform was created by Intel years ago, and has continued to prove incredibly popular. Intel supports it in fits and starts, however, sometimes skipping whole generations. Going forward, we anticipate that the vast majority of systems, whether using Intel or AMD chips, will come from manufacturers like AsRock, Gigabyte, and Asus, three of the leading motherboard manufacturers.

This Month’s Build, Featuring Intel’s 12th-Gen Platform!

Finally, after what seemed like an endless wait, we’re able to feature an Intel processor in our NUC guide again! For September 2022, that processor is the incredible Core i5-1240P, and it comes courtesy of AsRock. The 1240P is a 12-core, 16-thread powerhouse, despite being rated at just 28 Watts. It also has the excellent Intel Iris Xe G7 graphics solution on board. Because this is a barebones kit, you need to add your own RAM, solid-state drive, and operating system. We suggest 16GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, a fast 500GB PCIe solid-state drive, along with Windows 11. By the way, this system also has WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, and support for up to four monitors thank to its array of HDMI and DisplayPort outputs.

Need even more power? No problem! We list an incredible pre-built PC in the optional products section of this guide that is honestly an unbeatable deal. For around the same price as our Intel-based build, you get the top-of-the-line AMD Ryzen 7 5700G, an eight-core, 16-thread desktop-class CPU, along with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD included. The only drawback is a slightly larger size (5″ x 5″), but anyone serious about extreme computing in an ultra-compact form factor ought to check it out.

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

Note that we provide links to Amazon or Newegg for our US readers, and our Amazon links will auto-convert for our readers in Canada, the UK, and parts of the EU, with regional substitutions made where necessary. If you decide to purchase any of the products we list, please use the links provided, which helps support continued development of these guides.