MSI Cubi 5 12M-265US 2023, Core i7-1255U, 16GB, 1TB SSD, Black

The Cubi 5 scores 60.4 for compact use and 51.8 for home office, making it a genuinely good tiny desktop for work. But the gaming score of 10.5 is brutal, and the CPU sits in the 32nd percentile overall. Buy it for spreadsheets, not for Steam.

The Core i7-1255U is a 10-core chip with a 1.7GHz base clock, and it lands in the 32nd percentile for CPU performance in our database. That's below average for desktops overall, but you have to remember what this thing is. It's a mini PC running a laptop-class processor designed for efficiency, not raw power. For everyday office tasks it's plenty snappy, especially paired with that 1TB NVMe SSD which sits in the 64th percentile for storage.

The 16GB of DDR4 is a bit of a weak spot at the 33rd percentile for RAM, but it's enough for dozens of browser tabs and a few office apps at once. The Iris Xe GPU lands at the 49th percentile, basically middle of the pack. It'll handle 4K video playback and light photo editing without breaking a sweat. Just don't ask it to render anything 3D.

Stacked against the competition, the Cubi 5 is playing a different game. The HP OMEN GT22-3080 and Lenovo Legion Tower 5a Gen 10 are full-size gaming desktops with dedicated GPUs that would absolutely embarrass this thing in any 3D workload. The ASUS ROG GM700 and CLX SET are similarly built for performance. But none of those fit in a backpack or sip power like the Cubi 5 does. If you need a tiny, quiet office machine, the Cubi 5 makes sense. If you need any gaming capability at all, every single one of those competitors is a better choice.

Pricing is all over the place right now. US listings range from USD 1,055 to USD 1,185, a USD 130 spread across five sellers. That's a meaningful difference for what is essentially the same box. If you're buying, shop around. The CAD listing at CAD 2,697 is a single option and not directly comparable. For a mini PC with this spec sheet, the lower end of that USD range feels fair, but the higher end starts to creep into territory where you could get a more capable traditional desktop.

The MSI Cubi 5 12M-265US is a tiny desktop that punches way above its weight class for office work, scoring 60.4 out of 100 for compact use and 51.8 for home office. But that gaming score of 10.5 tells you everything about its limits. This is not a machine for play, it's a machine for spreadsheets, email, and video calls that happens to fit in a drawer.

Inside you get an Intel Core i7-1255U with 10 cores, 16GB of DDR4, and a 1TB NVMe SSD. That's a genuinely useful spec sheet for a box that weighs 0.55kg. The integrated Iris Xe graphics sit right around the middle of the pack for this category, which is fine for driving a couple of monitors but won't make any games happy.

Anyone who wants to game should look elsewhere immediately. The 10.5 gaming score is a non-starter. Also skip this if you need serious CPU performance for video editing or 3D work, the 32nd percentile CPU ranking means it'll choke on heavy renders. And if you're the type who likes to upgrade RAM later, the 16GB at the 33rd percentile with no clear upgrade path is a limitation worth considering.

The MSI Cubi 5 12M-265US is a solid little office worker with a 1TB NVMe SSD and a 10-core i7 that handles everyday tasks without complaint. The compact score of 60.4 is the real story here. But the gaming score of 10.5 is a dealbreaker if you want any play time, and the reliability percentile of 36 gives us pause. At the right price, around the USD 1,055 mark, it's a reasonable buy for a space-constrained desk. At USD 1,185, you're overpaying.