Asus crammed an RTX 5080 into a 3-litre box. It costs $4,400 and the performance gain is 2.3%.

TL;DRAsus launched the ROG NUC 16 in China at $4,400. It packs an RTX 5080 and Core Ultra 9 290HX in a 3-litre chassis.

Asus has launched the 2026 ROG NUC 16 in China, pairing Intel’s Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processor with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 laptop GPU inside a 3-litre chassis that weighs 3.12 kilograms. The black version starts at CNY 29,999 (approximately $4,400). A Moonlight White edition costs CNY 31,999 (approximately $4,700). Global pricing has not been confirmed, but a US launch near $4,000 is expected, likely after a wider reveal at Computex in June.

The specification sheet is formidable for a box this size. The Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus brings 24 cores (8 Performance, 16 Efficient) with 40MB of L2 cache. The RTX 5080 laptop GPU, based on Nvidia’s Blackwell architecture, supports DLSS 4.5 with Multi Frame Generation and delivers up to 1,334 AI TOPS across CPU, GPU, and NPU workloads. The system supports up to 128GB of DDR5-6400 memory via two CSODIMM slots, and storage comes via one M.2 PCIe 5.0 and two PCIe 4.0 slots, supporting up to 9TB total capacity. Lower-tier configurations with RTX 5070 Ti, 5070, and 5060 GPUs are available, all using the same processor.

Connectivity is comprehensive: Thunderbolt 4, two HDMI 2.1 ports, two DisplayPort 2.1 ports, four USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A ports, Wi-Fi 7 with Bluetooth 5.4, and 2.5GbE LAN. Paired with the newly announced ROG Xreal R1 AR gaming glasses, the NUC 16 could serve as the core of a portable high-refresh-rate gaming setup that fits in a backpack, though the combined cost of both devices would exceed $5,200.