We're at the ASUS booth here at CES 2024 to see something that I really wasn't expecting this soon.
We're used to seeing NUCs. Intel has been making them for a long time. They're really awesome small computers with a lot of horsepower generally relative to their size.
But having ASUS before that is a new thing. See, back last year ASUS acquired the NUC everything, apparently even employees, which is kind of crazy.
Fast forward like a couple of months and there's now an ROG knock. I don't think it's going to be cheap but it looks cool and I imagine it's going to go pretty fast.
Now unfortunately I don't have a box so the unboxing is going to have to be taking the thing apart which when I asked about it they were a little skittish. We'll see what happens there.
For IO on the back we've got another two 10 gig USB ports. These ones curiously are labeled as 10 gig but you can see that they're little black ports.
These are just going to be USB 2.0. They just have to fix the silkscreen for the mass production version.
We've got 2.5 gig Intel Ethernet, a 40 gigabit Thunderbolt port that does do USB power delivery.
You would expect if the system is not running like a gaming load that this can put out around 90 watts and then during gaming about 65 if it needs to so it's kind of a dynamic power delivery.
HDMI 2.1 DP 1.4A and then they power in for the big power brick. That means you can run four 4K displays off of this machine.
I kind of doubt that most people will do that but if you wanted to you could and there's also a Kensington lock which is a nice thing to see.
And around front we have those other two USB ports, an SD card reader and a combo mic headphone jack.
And then the power button. So why don't we turn it on?
Hey it works! NVIDIA Confidential! What the heck? Show it! Get a Susan Trouble!
As configured this is the Core 7 155H configuration so this is the lower end model but still testing pretty good.
Like 32,000 in CPU mark is pretty respectable for the 3D mark. This is what I'm more curious about.
3060 Ti score is like 20,000 and a half.
During the past mark run the highest we got on the GPU was 103 watts and the highest we got on the CPU was also 103 watts.
That being said any sort of like temperature or performance numbers are kind of to be taken with a grain of salt.
This is a pre-production unit. It's still scoring pretty well but could be different than what you end up with.
And also this is the lower end model. Maybe we run like Cinebench just for funsies.
The CPU is at 106 degrees but it is drawing 100 watts.
Technically Intel only rates the CPU to stay sustained at 65 watts.
Anything higher than that is turbo so it is still turboing.
It really doesn't feel like the fans are going that hard.
Maybe it's because it's an engineering sample. Maybe it's because they just want it to be a quiet system.
There's definitely heat coming off there though.
I mean sure it's not a Cinebench content creation machine but it's still scoring well above a 5800X desktop chip in Cinebench and this is the lower end SKU.
This is hilarious. Fred Ripper 2990WX 32 cores. It's 1200 points. This is 1000 points.
32 cores from several years ago is only 20% faster than the 16 cores.
I've never run Cinebench GPU. I didn't even know that this was a thing.
Wow. It scores the same as a Radeon Pro W6800 which I have zero context for.
1440P right now. I get 200 FPS. I mean performing pretty well.
I honestly don't have that much context for CS2 as to what this would be but you guys can make your own judgment based on that.
1440P maxed out the settings. We tried to update the immediate drivers and it didn't work.
It's pre-release hardware so probably some NVIDIA lock but in the game our GPU was drawing between 190 watts pretty consistently.
We're sitting at around 70 degrees. CPU temperature is high. I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe there is something going on with the CPU cooler given that it's a pre-release.
It wasn't drawing much power. Seemingly in the 30 to 45 watt range. They'd reasonably quiet although the noise floor in here is super high.
Cool. Let's take it apart. Oh look at that beauty. Damn boy. That's some big fans.
It looks like this whole section here is just one big old heatsink and then you've got two discreet blower style fans.
I give you my word it will go back together. I'm not giving you my word that it will work.
For storage right now it's a Samsung kind of OEM looking SSD. They have not confirmed this yet or the capacities even but they said they probably expect maybe a 512 and a 1TB SKU.
But the interesting thing is you will be able to buy this as a bare bones which is pretty cool. Not something I would expect from ASUS but welcome nonetheless.
Regardless of what spec you were to buy there is 3M.2 slots. They are all PCIe Gen 4 by 4. You could load this thing up with like 24 terabytes of severant 8 terabyte drives if you wanted.
It's Sodium slots which is great. I would kind of expect a system like this to have soldered memory which is a sad state of affairs but this one does not.
They expect the actual configurations to be 1632 probably but you could also get it bare bones and put whatever you want in it.
I asked if in the BIOS you'll be able to screw around with like memory timings and the answer I got was TBD but at the very least it will work at 5600 which is reasonably fast for a system like this.
I got confirmation there won't be any sort of XMP settings. It's because Intel Meteor Lake doesn't support it so they're taking the easy route and saying well Intel said I can't do it.
I've seen motherboard computer manufacturers go around stuff like that before just saying all of the M.2 slots have a tool list mechanism to kind of go along with the tool list theme.
This one is an Intel Killer AX1690i. It's a 2x2 Wi-Fi 6E chip so you can do a 160 wide 6E.
Okay so there's the Wi-Fi antenna. That's cool. It has a good place to put them on the front.
So even if you slide this into your like media console or whatever it still has the antennas exposed.
They don't have a backup of this so if I break it it's the demo is broken and...
Woo! Woo! Hey look at that! Woo!
The CPU looks so baby compared to the GPU.
Speaking of CPU there's going to be two options for this chassis. A Core Ultra 9 185H and a Core Ultra 7 155H.
They're both 16 core chips. They both have the same performance, efficiency, low power, efficiency configuration.
The main difference, boost clocks and base clocks are going to be higher on the Ultra 9.
And then you're also going to see a lower base power on the Ultra 7 and the GPU will be a little bit slower.
That being said the TDP of both is technically the same 45 watts and the max assured power which is what Intel rates in optimal circumstances
it should be able to run consistently at is the same on both.
And ASUS is saying that they should be able to run at that 65 watt TDP consistently with this thermal solution.
That being said when you move over to the GPU there is some kind of funky power stuff going on there.
This can either be an RTX 4060 or 4070, obviously the mobile SKU.
So you're looking at 115 watt TDP on both of those chips but they have dynamic boost.
Which means it can kind of intelligently steal power from the CPU and allocate it to the GPU
if it thinks that that will give you a better gaming experience which a lot of the time it can.
So it can go all the way up to 140 watts.
And then ASUS says they're targeting to make sure it can do sustain consistently and handle that full load.
Which is great because sometimes you see like a 4060 or 4070 in a laptop and you're like oh that's great.
And then it's a 35 watt capped 4070 and you're like okay that's not really what I was wanting to buy.
There is a vapor chamber over the GPU which is pretty baller and then the CPU just has these two gargantuan heat pipes.
Overall it seems like a relatively serviceable, relatively tool list at least as far as normies would go let's say.
You can buy it as a bare bones which I like but there is still kind of one caveat which is the price.
If you look at other kind of big brands, similar systems, it's not entirely out to lunch.
I was told you're looking around $14 to $1500 for the bare bones with the 4060 and the lower end Core 7
and probably around $1800 for the bare bones of the higher end 4070 SKU.
If you were going to purchase a complete system with RAM and storage you're looking around $17 to $1800 for the lower tier 4060 model
or around $21 to $2200 for the higher end 4070 model which is not nothing.
It's a fair bit of money. I don't know what else I would compare it to.
Obviously if you compare to a custom built system which is going to be a lot larger, you have to build it, all these things.
Obviously the price to performance is not going to be the same.
But if you need something that's small, seemingly quiet and seemingly tool list, this could be a serious option to look at.
You'll see in a few months I guess. Maybe we'll do a full review.
Let us know down in the comments if you want to see that. Get subscribed, like, don't miss out at the rest of our CES show coverage.
Goodbye.