Tech Awards 2024 Reader's Choice - Best Gaming Desktop PC Brand

For the first time in three years, our readers have decided on a different brand as their favourite gaming desktop PC. Say hello to ASUS ROG, pipping Aftershock by the smallest of margins at 1% – it’s quite a shocker (pun intended), really. That said, ASUS has made some pretty good strides here in 2024, offering a variety of custom-built and ready-made PCs, including the very popular NUC series – which the company took over from Intel.

Can Buy

Gaming-wise, I tested it with Cyberpunk 2077 at 1,440p, with the Ultra Ray Tracing setting with DLSS on scoring 73fps, and 104fps with RT off. In Returnal, the Asus ROG NUC 970 did decently too, with 88fps with RT on and 100fps with RT off on the Epic setting. For Cinebench R23, the unit scored 18,171, and the CPU hit a peak of 115W and a max temp of 103 degrees Celsius. It's honestly pretty good for gaming, and you can hook it up to three monitors — it has one HDMI and two DisplayPorts.

8 out of 10

... the objective of offering a high-performance machine capable of adapting to virtually any situation has been achieved. A mini-PC in the shape of a technological showcase...

4 stars out of 5

The 2024 Asus ROG NUC proves that the format still has a future, and that Asus' supervision will do it good. The configuration manages to retain the advantages of the original lineup, while giving it a welcome and well-managed gamer orientation.

Back2Gaming Recommended Award

The ROG NUC is a performant mini-PC, easily the class-leading when it comes to performance-per-liter in terms of gaming.

Gold

gaming mini-PC with a RTX 4070 as a flagship

Best Mini PC

ROG NUC is powerful mini PC for gamers or AI creators with Intel Core Ultra 9 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 4070

PCM Best Performance

ROG NUC 970 integrates the latest Core Ultra processor platform and the RTX 40 display core to achieve small size and excellent work, productivity and gaming performance, and can be flexibly selected to use a new generation of OLED display or TV. It becomes a mini entertainment center.

We Recommend

I can really imagine ditching my big desktop and running purely on this compact variant. I would either put it under the monitor or hide it behind it and have a lot of free space on the desk. ROG NUC offers everything I need to work.