ASUS ExpertCenter PN64 (i5-12500H)

What owners say

Four labs had the PN64 with the Core i5-12500H, and the most thorough explains its behaviour: ASUS lets the chip draw 80 W for up to 56 seconds, it spikes to about 95 °C, and then it throttles to roughly what a fixed 35 W limit gives. Another lab saw a gentler 81 °C peak settling near 70 °C. Setting a steady 45 W limit by hand kept it about 500 MHz faster once the stock setting would have throttled, and one reviewer's main complaint is that ASUS caps the chip below what it can do. Noise depends on who listened: about 50 dB in Normal mode under Cinebench and almost inaudible in Quiet mode for one lab, little difference between the two for another, and no software could read the fan speed. The BIOS can disable cores and enable HDMI-CEC for TV remotes. There is only one USB port at the back and no Thunderbolt, but the rear USB-C accepts power, so a suitable monitor can run it over one cable. Four screws in the feet open it, and a thin film joins lid and base and tears if pulled. The 2.5-inch bay takes only 7 mm drives, and memory is capped at 2 × 16 GB for 12th-generation units. Reviewers disagree on whether the rear HDMI ports are 2.0 or 2.1.

For whom

A sturdy business or home-office mini PC with HDMI-CEC, Intel 2.5GbE and a 2.5-inch bay, for someone willing to set a power limit.

Not for

Anyone who needs Thunderbolt, several rear USB ports or more than 32 GB of memory.

Our own summary of 6 published sources, reviewed Sep 23, 2026. We have not tested this Mini PC ourselves; the sources are listed under About this data.