Asus is the brand new, non-exclusive steward of Intel’s teeny-tiny NUC (Next Unit of Computing) designs, following the previous proprietor’s exit from the market last year. And, whereas Asus nonetheless desires to promote tiny, high-powered desktops to avid gamers with more cash than house, the celebrated NUC Extreme has been completely KO’d. That means NUC followers who wish to pair the tiny {hardware} with full desktop-powered GPUs are out of luck.

The ROG NUC shown off at CES is Asus’ NUC play for avid gamers, packing high-powered laptop computer elements as much as a Core Ultra 9 CPU and an RTX 4060 or 4070 cellular GPU right into a diminutive barebones desktop. But an Asus representative told Fudzilla that the corporate has no plans to carry again the NUC Extreme line.

Starting with the ninth technology based mostly on Coffee Lake, the Extreme variants of the NUC design paired a detachable, upgradable NUC Compute Element (housing the processor, I/O panel, and empty RAM and M.2 storage slots) with PCIe slots for a full-sized desktop GPU. This allowed avid gamers to construct a super-tiny machine with out dropping entry to high-power discrete graphics playing cards. That’s very true on the 11th and 12th-gen NUC Extreme, which expanded the case and allowed for a similar full-length playing cards as an ATX desktop.

Alas, this may need been what killed the NUC Extreme. With the bigger 7.5-liter physique, the NUC Extreme 12 is just a bit smaller than the smallest Mini-ITX case, which additionally permits for full-sized graphics playing cards. The Fractal Design Terra, for instance, is just 10.4 liters in quantity. The NUC Extreme 13 introduced in 2022 is 13.9 liters, barely smaller than the popular Cooler Master NR200P Mini-ITX case. Without Intel placing within the engineering to create a brand new 14th-gen NUC Computing Element, it’s not shocking that Asus determined to stay with laptop computer components for its ultra-small designs.

If you’re seeking to cram absolutely the most quantity of PC gaming energy right into a tiny footprint and you don’t wish to lose entry to CPU and GPU improve choices, an ITX construct appears to be your greatest guess for the time being. Pour one out for the NUC Extreme, a really cool sequence of little computer systems that appears to have outlived its relevance.