ASUS NUC 14 Pro (165H)

What owners say

It is sold as an empty box, so what matters is what happens when you open it — and on the taller chassis there is a flat ribbon cable in the way that two reviewers describe in almost the same words. One calls getting it back into its socket a shortcut to a refused warranty claim; the other says it feels so fragile that an inexperienced owner will simply snap it off. The lid is advertised as tool-free, and one reviewer praises exactly that while another reports needing a flat screwdriver that is not supplied. Fit a Kensington lock and the base will not come off at all, which is worth knowing before securing a machine you still have to build. Two things to plan for inside. The Arc graphics need both memory slots populated, and the firmware will not load enthusiast memory profiles, so faster modules run at their standard rating; one reviewer measured the lower module running eight to ten degrees hotter than the upper one under load. And the argument for this processor over the dearer one: tested in the same family, the Ultra 7 beat the Ultra 9 on a multi-core render, on a single-core test and on a graphics benchmark.

For whom

Building a business desktop yourself, with three years of warranty and the remote-management features a fleet actually uses.

Not for

Anyone uneasy about a fragile ribbon cable, anyone who wants memory above its standard speed, and anyone paying extra for the Ultra 9.

Our own summary of 6 published sources, reviewed Sep 18, 2026. We have not tested this Mini PC ourselves; the sources are listed under About this data.