ASUS NUC 15 Pro RNUC15CRKU50000U Black 2025

The ASUS NUC 15 Pro Slim is a tiny barebones PC with best-in-class RAM support and solid productivity performance. Gaming is a bust and the included storage is nearly useless, so budget for upgrades. Worth it for tinkerers and business builders, skip it if you want plug-and-play.

The Core Ultra 5 225H is a solid mid-pack performer in our rankings, around the 64th percentile for CPUs. It'll chew through spreadsheets, browser tabs, and video calls without breaking a sweat. The integrated Arc 130T graphics are fine for desktop use and light photo editing, but don't expect to fire up Cyberpunk. Gaming lands at a rough 14.9 out of 100, which is one of the weakest scores we've seen for that use case. The real star is memory support. Two CSO-DIMM slots take up to 96GB of 6400 MHz DDR5, which is best-in-class for a box this size. Storage is the sore spot. The M.2 slots are fast, PCIe 5.0 on the 2280, but the included 96GB NVMe SSD is tiny and sits at the 5th percentile. You'll want to budget for a real drive immediately.

Stacked against the competition, the NUC 15 Pro Slim carves out a specific niche. The Lenovo Legion 90YA003GUS will crush it in gaming, no contest, but it's a much bigger box. The Apple iMac M4 has a gorgeous display and better out-of-box experience, but you're locked into Apple's ecosystem and paying more. The HP OmniDesk M03-0064 and Dell Desktop ECT1250 are more traditional desktops with better storage options, but they can't touch the NUC's portability or RAM ceiling. If you want a tiny, quiet machine that disappears behind a monitor and handles serious multitasking, the NUC wins. If you want gaming or a complete system out of the box, look elsewhere.

Pricing is all over the map depending on where you shop. In Canada, you'll see a CAD 105 spread between vendors, with Amazon.ca coming in at the low end around CAD 710 and Best Buy asking closer to CAD 815. For a barebones kit that still needs RAM, storage, and an OS, that's not pocket change. But if you already have spare parts or you're building these for clients, the math works out. The 96GB RAM ceiling and PCIe 5.0 slot give this thing a long upgrade runway. Just don't forget to add the cost of a real SSD to your budget, because the included one is a joke.

The ASUS NUC 15 Pro Slim is a barebones mini PC that punches way above its weight class for office work and productivity. You get a 14-core Intel Core Ultra 5 225H, support for up to 96GB of DDR5, and Wi-Fi 7 in a chassis that weighs less than a can of soda. It's not a gaming rig, and the storage situation out of the box is basically nonexistent, but for a tidy little workhorse this thing is hard to beat.

We pulled the numbers from our database and the RAM ceiling here is top of the charts, 99th percentile. The port selection is strong too. The catch? You're buying a barebones kit, so you'll need to add your own SSD, RAM, and OS. That's either a fun weekend project or an annoying extra step, depending on your patience.

Skip this if you need a complete system out of the box. The barebones approach means buying RAM, a real SSD, and an OS on top of the base price, which adds up fast. Gamers should absolutely look elsewhere, the Arc 130T is not built for that. And if you want something with a track record of reliability and lots of user reviews, the NUC 15 Pro Slim's mediocre social proof and reliability scores might give you pause.

This is a machine for tinkerers, IT folks, and small business owners who don't mind rolling up their sleeves. Pop in a decent NVMe drive and some RAM, install your OS of choice, and you've got a compact productivity beast that'll handle anything short of gaming. The 96GB RAM support means it'll stay relevant for years. If you want a plug-and-play experience or any kind of gaming capability, this isn't your box. But for the right buyer, it's a gem.