MSI Cubi 5 2025, Core i3-1215U, 32GB, 1TB SSD, Black

A tiny office box with big RAM and storage, but a budget laptop brain. Great for spreadsheets, terrible for anything else.

The i3-1215U is a 6-core, 8-thread chip that sits in the 24th percentile for CPUs in our database. That's not a typo. It's fine for Office apps and light multitasking, but it's a budget laptop processor in a desktop shell. The 32GB of DDR4 and 1TB NVMe SSD are the real stars here, landing in the 66th and 73rd percentiles respectively. Boot times are snappy and you can leave a stupid number of Chrome tabs open without sweating. The integrated Intel UHD graphics are a weak spot at the 38th percentile, so don't even think about gaming. The 65W PSU tells you everything: this thing sips power and stays quiet.

The Apple Mac mini M4 Pro absolutely destroys this thing in CPU and GPU performance, but it costs more and locks you into macOS. If you need Windows and a tiny box, the Cubi 5 is a reasonable pick, but the Lenovo Legion Tower 5a Gen 10 or HP OMEN GT16-0364 will run circles around it for not much more money if you have desk space. The Dell Tower Plus EBT2250 is another traditional tower that offers way more performance per dollar. The Cubi 5 only wins if size is your absolute top priority.

The price spread here is wild, from USD 679 to USD 979 across just two listings. At the low end, you're getting a decent deal for a compact office machine with 32GB RAM and 1TB storage. At the high end, you're getting fleeced. The Newegg listing is the one to watch for the lower price. If you're paying anywhere near USD 900, stop and buy something with a real desktop CPU instead.

The MSI Cubi 5 is a tiny office box that punches above its weight for everyday work, but don't expect any magic. The standout here is the 32GB of RAM and 1TB SSD, which is frankly overkill for the i3-1215U inside. You're getting a lot of storage and memory headroom in a chassis the size of a paperback, and that's the whole story. It's built for spreadsheets, browser tabs, and remote desktop sessions, not for anything that needs real graphics muscle.

If you're looking for any kind of gaming, video editing, or heavy compute performance, this isn't it. Go get a tower with a real desktop CPU and a discrete GPU instead. The Lenovo Legion Tower 5a Gen 10 or HP OMEN GT16-0364 will embarrass this thing for similar money.

Buy the MSI Cubi 5 if you need a tiny Windows 11 Pro machine for office work, remote desktop, or a kiosk setup, and you find it at the USD 679 end of the price range. The 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD make it a surprisingly capable multitasker for boring work. But if you have any performance ambitions or you're paying more than USD 750, look elsewhere. This is a niche product for a niche need.