MSI Cubi NUC 1MG-015US 2024, Core 7 150U, 32GB, 1TB SSD, Black

A tiny, capable office PC with 32GB of RAM and zero gaming chops. Buy it for spreadsheets, not for Steam.

The Core 7 150U is the star here. Ten cores at 1.8GHz base clock means this thing chews through browser tabs, Office apps, and light photo editing without breaking a sweat. The 32GB of DDR5 is a nice surprise at this size, and it lands in the 80th percentile for RAM among mini PCs. Storage is solid too, a 1TB NVMe SSD puts it above average. But the integrated GPU is a weak spot. It sits right around the middle of the pack, which is fine for 4K video output over the dual HDMI ports, but don't expect any real gaming performance. The gaming score of 13.8 out of 100 tells you everything you need to know.

The Cubi NUC sits in an awkward spot. The Apple Mac Studio M4 Max absolutely destroys it in raw performance, but that's a completely different price bracket and use case. The Lenovo Legion Tower 5a and HP OMEN GT16 are gaming desktops that will run circles around the Cubi for games, but they're full-sized towers. If you need a tiny PC for office work, the Cubi is a reasonable choice. If you want to play games or do heavy creative work, look at the Legion or the Mac Studio instead. The Cubi's real competition is other mini PCs, not these towers.

Pricing is all over the place right now. US listings range from USD 1,030 to USD 1,349, which is a USD 319 spread for the exact same machine. That's wild. If you're buying, shop around. Newegg and Best Buy both carry it, and the lower end of that range is where this makes sense. At USD 1,030, you're getting a capable little workhorse. At USD 1,349, you're overpaying for what is ultimately a productivity box with no upgrade path for graphics.

The MSI Cubi NUC 1MG-015US is a tiny desktop that punches above its weight for everyday work. You get a 10-core Intel Core 7 150U, 32GB of DDR5, and a 1TB NVMe SSD crammed into a 0.63kg box. That's a serious amount of hardware for something you can hide behind a monitor. But don't let the 'NUC' name fool you into thinking this is a gaming rig. The integrated Intel Graphics are fine for spreadsheets and streaming, not for Cyberpunk.

If you're looking for a gaming PC, this isn't it. Go get a Lenovo Legion Tower 5a or an HP OMEN instead. If you need serious compute for video editing or 3D work, the Apple Mac Studio M4 Max is in a different league entirely. The Cubi is for people who want a quiet, small, reliable office machine, and nothing more.

The MSI Cubi NUC 1MG-015US is a solid little office machine with a generous RAM allocation and a tiny footprint. It's not exciting, but it doesn't need to be. It needs to sit on a desk, run Excel, handle video calls, and stay out of the way. It does all of that well. Just don't buy it expecting to play games or do any serious GPU work, because it won't. And definitely don't pay the top end of that price range.