MSI Cubi NUC 1MG-015US Black 2024

A tiny, well-connected mini PC with generous RAM and storage that excels at productivity work but chokes on anything GPU-intensive. The price spread is wild, so shop carefully.

The Core 7 150U is a capable chip for everyday productivity, handling browser tabs, Office apps, and video calls without flinching. Our benchmarks put the CPU performance in the middle of the pack for mini PCs, which is fine because this thing isn't trying to be a workstation. The 32GB DDR5 RAM is a standout here, sitting in the 79th percentile and giving you headroom for memory-hungry applications. Storage speeds are solid at the 65th percentile, and the 1TB drive means you won't be cramped for space. The integrated graphics? They're fine for 4K video playback and basic display work, but if you're hoping to do any serious gaming or GPU-accelerated tasks, you're going to be severely disappointed. That 14.1 gaming score isn't a typo.

The HP OMEN GT22 and Lenovo Legion Tower 5i are proper gaming desktops that make this Cubi look like a calculator by comparison. If you need GPU power, those are the machines to look at, not this. The ASUS ROG GM700TZ and Mac Studio M4 Max are in a completely different league for creative work. The Cubi NUC isn't competing with any of them. What it is competing with are other mini PCs like the Intel NUC 13 or ASUS PN-series, and against those it holds its own with superior RAM and storage configurations.

Prices range from $1109 to $3194 across vendors, which is a $2085 spread that makes zero sense for the same product. You can find this at the lower end if you shop around, and at that price it's a fair deal for what you're getting. The 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD justify the cost over cheaper mini PCs with half the memory and storage. But if you're paying $3000+, you're getting absolutely fleeced. Check multiple retailers before buying.

The MSI Cubi NUC 1MG-015US is a tiny desktop that punches exactly where it needs to for productivity work, and nowhere else. With a 10-core Intel Core 7 150U, 32GB of DDR5, and a 1TB NVMe SSD, this little box has the muscle for office tasks, content consumption, and multitasking without breaking a sweat. It's the size of a thick paperback book, weighs just 630 grams, and hides surprisingly solid connectivity behind its compact frame. But let's be clear: this is not a gaming rig, a video editing workstation, or anything that needs real GPU grunt. The integrated Intel Graphics are exactly what you'd expect from integrated graphics.

If you need any kind of GPU performance, whether it's gaming, video editing, or 3D work, this isn't the PC for you. Go grab a proper desktop tower or consider a laptop with a dedicated GPU. The integrated graphics here are exactly what you'd expect from integrated graphics, which means they're fine for video playback and terrible for everything else.

The MSI Cubi NUC 1MG-015US is a solid mini PC for its intended audience: office workers, home users, and anyone who needs a capable secondary PC that takes up almost no space. The 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD are genuinely impressive for this form factor. But the integrated graphics and middle-of-the-road CPU performance mean this thing has a ceiling, and you'll hit it fast if you're trying to do more than spreadsheets and web browsing. It's good at what it does, but it doesn't do much.