- ASRock Industrial has launched its new Mini PC, known as NUC Ultra & NUCS Ultra 100 Box.
- The NUCS Ultra is a slimmer, even more compact Mini PC than the NUC Ultra.
- The new Mini PCs have Intel Core Ultra processors, support quad 4K displays, and have the latest features like Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 6E, and more.
ASRock has just launched its brand new NUC Box lineup. These are Mini PCs, and the new models were unveiled recently. The CPU department of ASRock’s new NUC Ultra 100 Box & NUCS Ultra 100 Box now receives Intel’s latest Core Ultra processors, built on the Meteor Lake Architecture.
ASRock will offer its new Mini PCs with two processor options, Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and Intel Core Ultra 5 125H. The new Core Ultra processors also bring Intel Arc graphics as the integrated GPU, next to the upgraded compute tile with Redwood Cove Performance Cores (P-Cores) and Crestmont Efficiency Cores (E-Cores). You can have a look at the core & thread counts and other specifications of these Intel Core Ultra 5/7 processors below:
14th Gen CPU Variant Total No. Of Cores (C) / Threads (T) Core Configuration (P/E/LP-E) Intel Smart Cache (LLC) Max P-Core Turbo Frequency Max E-Core Turbo Frequency Integrated GPU, Xe Cores, GPU Frequency Intel Core Ultra 7 155H 16C/22T 6+8+2 24M 4.80 GHz 3.80 GHz Arc Graphics, 8 Xe Cores, 2.25 GHz Intel Core Ultra 5 125H 14C/18T 6+8+2 18M 4.50 GHz 3.60 GHz Arc Graphics, 7 Xe Cores, 2.2 GHz
Several improvements have been brought to the table with Intel’s Core Ultra processors. The most major change is the Intel 4 manufacturing process, bringing forward major efficiency gains in this new generation Intel process. An entirely new core type (Low Power E-Core/LP E-core) has also been introduced.
ASRock is offering up to 96GB of DDR5 5600MHz support on its new Core Ultra-based Mini PCs. In total, four variants are launching, with the NUCS variants being smaller, as we said before. AI features are a major part of Intel’s new generation of Core Ultra processors.
These new ASRock Mini PCs also feature Intel’s brand-new neural processing unit (NPU), which is dedicated to AI acceleration on the PC. According to ASRock, Intel’s addition of a neural processor to Core Ultra chips brings forward “up to 20x performance per watt” improvement.
The ‘NUCS’ variant is slimmer than the ‘NUC’ one, although both are Mini PCs which are quite compact. ASRock is touting the NUCS Ultra 100 Box as a slim-type system. For connectivity, these Mini PCs feature Wi-Fi 6E & Bluetooth 5.3.
These also support up to four 4K Displays, with support for DisplayPort 2.1, HDMI 2.1, and additional ports. The ASRock NUC & NUCS Ultra 100 Box Mini PCs support Thunderbolt 4 as well. For now, pricing and availability have not been revealed. When this changes, we will surely let you know!
Intel Core Ultra CPUs Compared to 13th Gen Raptor Lake
ASRock Industrial has also compared its new Mini PCs’ performance in the Cinebench R23 Multi-Core test. This basically represents the overall performance of the CPU, with all cores being active. Here, we can see that the previous-gen Raptor Lake architecture based on i5-1340P & i7-1370P is marginally slower in the benchmark.
3DMark Time Spy was also tested, which utilizes the GPU. Thanks to the new Meteor Lake architecture, we get Intel Arc graphics on these Core Ultra processors. Thus, there is a big jump in performance too.
The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H sees a +76% improvement over the i7-1370P processor in 3DMark Time Spy. The multi-core scores have improved over the 13th Gen P-Series i5 & i7.
What are your thoughts on ASRock’s brand new Mini PC lineup with Intel Core Ultra processors built on Meteor Lake architecture? Let us know in the comments below.
