ETA PRIME has reviewed the Asus ROG NUC 970 SFF PC. This prebuilt features an Intel Ultra9 185H and NVIDIA RTX 4070 laptop GPU. The Ultra 9 185 H features 6 performance cores, 8 efficiency cores, and 2 ultra low power cores for a total of 16 cores and 22 threads, and posted a score of 11,280 points in 3DMark Time Spy. For reference, a stock Intel I5-12600K score about 13,428 in Time Spy. The RTX 4070 laptop GPU (8GB) is set to draw up to 140 watts of power, and performs a bit below a desktop RTX 3070, but a bit above the RTX 3060Ti in 3D Mark Time Spy.
For reference, I built a mid-range system in a Louqe RAW S1 about 2 years ago that included a 12600K, RTX 3070, and 32GB of DDR5-5600. Performance of that system would be a bit better for gaming than the ROG NUC 970, but not as good for creative work. The Intel Ultra 9 185H includes a more advanced version of Quick Sync with Arc based graphics cores that support AV1 Encoding, and the RTX 4070 media engine is more advanced as well. Encoding in AV1 would take a fraction of the time on the NUC 970 compared to my RAW S1 build. Additionally, the Ultra 9 185H has a very slightly higher CineBench R23 score providing it doesn’t throttle as ETA PRIME observed a CPU temp as high as 102C.
Of course, the ROG NUC 970 is a fraction of the size of the RAW S1, but comes in at…good lord… a jaw dropping $2,199.00 US with 32GB of RAM and 1TB storage. I’m not sure what ASUS is doing with that price.
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