It's the end of the line for the NUC Extreme line, an Asus spokesperson confirmed to Fudzilla. making the NUC 13 Extreme the last of its kind. Asus, which took over the NUC line from Intel, has started making proactive changes to the NUC lineup and based on how things are looking like currently, the company trimmed this lineup down to NUC, NUC Pro and the recently announced ROG NUC.
This decision makes sense for a few reasons, one being the fact that ROG NUCs technically succeed NUC Extreme while having ROG-inspired designs, cooling and features. NUCs (whether it's made by Intel or Asus) devices are usually small, compact and well-packed with the best possible barebone options for different uses. The Raptor Lake-based NUC 13 Extreme looks anything but compact with desktop CPU options ranging between Intel Core i9-13900K, Core i7-13700K and the Core i5-13600K in an Intel Compute Unit with a triple slot for a graphics card and a lot more function inside its 14-liter case. In comparison, the ROG NUC looks more compact but relies on mobile graphics cards.
Asus has a prebuilt PC lineup including the 10-liter Asus ROG C22H with up to an Intel Core i9-14900KF and RTX 4090 GPU while providing tool-free design. The NUC 13 Extreme is still sold through certain retail outlets depending in some regions.
The State of Mini PC Barebone Market
The barebones market is competitive, but is fragmented in certain regions sold through local retailers and online regional sellers. This is where Asus has an advantage, as a company that sells globally. Since its takeover, Asus has been selling Intel NUC SKUs and covering its warranty. Now, it is inevitable Asus will begin upgrading the currently available NUCs with more variations.
Meanwhile, companies like Gigabyte have Brix lineups and ECS has been making mini PCs for different types of users and industries, though none of them have gaming-specific barebones, yet. Zotac has been making barebones mini PC for many years, such as the Magnus One.
