The market for mini computers seems to be growing year after year, and more and more manufacturers are designing and creating such devices. Fortunately, there’s a niche for small gaming PCs too, and one of the largest hardware companies in the world, Intel, is focusing on it. In today’s review, I’m going to take a look at the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit. It promises to be powerful enough for any game while also offering fast connectivity options like Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E and Thunderbolt 4 ports. Is it a good choice for creators or gamers? Read on and find out what to expect from the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit:

NOTE: There are several versions of Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kits offered by the company. Each differs from the others in terms of hardware and software. This review is about the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit with the product code NUC12SNKi72. For other options, check the official Intel website for NUC mini computers.

Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit: Who is it good for?

This small gaming computer is an excellent choice for:

• Gamers who fancy the idea of playing on a powerful mini PC
• People who like small computers more than regular desktop PCs
• Those who want fast Wi-Fi 6E, Thunderbolt, and Bluetooth 5 connectivity

Pros and cons

Here are the things I appreciate most about the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit:

See price on:

Buy now

• Compact size, smaller than a gaming console
• Excellent performance
• A generous selection of ports, including Thunderbolt
• Fast Ethernet and even faster Wi-Fi 6E
• Built-in card reader
• Quiet operation even under full load
• The box includes a stand

There are a few downsides to consider:

• The price is higher than that of competing devices
• Not VESA-compatible, so you can’t mount it on the back of a monitor

Verdict

The Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit is a compact and powerful mini PC that features a 12th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and Intel Arc discrete graphics. Designed for gamers and content creators, I believe it’s a good choice for anyone who needs a powerful processor and wants to enjoy immersive graphics and fast connectivity. Furthermore, it’s also a great option for people who appreciate good design and like small computers that fit discreetly on any desk. The Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit is available at a starting price of $1,180, which goes up depending on the configuration you select. Compared to gaming computers that you build on your own, it may seem a bit pricey. However, considering how small it is and how everything is configured inside, I think it’s worth it, at least for those who like to tinker with their devices but not too much. 🙂

Unboxing the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit

The Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit comes in a relatively large box for a mini PC, yet much smaller than the packaging of a desktop computer. Painted black, the box showcases the mini PC’s name and hardware configuration, as well as its design.

The box of the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit

When unboxing the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit, you’ll find that its contents are quite generous for a device of its kind, although some additional components are needed in order to get it up and running. Inside the box, you get the mini PC, a desktop mount for placing it vertically on your desk, the power charger, a couple of screws, a plate used for the RGB lighting that you can customize yourself, and two leaflets with safety and regulatory information.

Unboxing the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit

Unboxing the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit is straightforward. The packaging looks great and contains the essential components plus a few useful accessories. However, as this is more of a DIY (do it yourself) kit, you’ll soon find out that, in order to be able to use the mini PC, you’ll also need to buy some memory, one or more solid-state drives, and a Windows 10 or Windows 11 license.

Design and hardware specifications

Unlike regular Intel mini PCs from the NUC family, which are usually just small “bricks” with ports around them, the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit doesn’t have a minimalist and “just-functional” design. Its hexagonal case looks futuristic, both in terms of shape and patterns. And, to add to the good impression, when I turned it on, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there are RGB effects in place too. Under the left panel of the mini PC, there’s a faceplate with RGB LEDs behind, and when it lights up, you get to see an illustration of a skull. I like it, and many gamers out there will probably do too. And if you don’t, you can design your own illustration using the blank faceplate bundled with the mini PC or choose to disable the RGB lights altogether.

The side panel has RGB lights

Measuring 9.1 inches (230 mm) in length, 7.1 inches (180 mm) in width, and 2.4 inches (65 mm) in height, the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit isn’t as small as an Intel NUC Pro, for example. Still, it’s more compact than any gaming console, including the Sony PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X.

The mini PC comes with an included stand

The front side of the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit is home to two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (the one painted amber can deliver a maximum of 2A), a built-in microphone (its two pinholes can be spotted if you look carefully), a 3.5 mm headset jack, a Thunderbolt USB-C port, a multifunctional RGB LED that, by default, is used for showing the hard drive activity, an SD card reader, a small network LED, a small CIR (Consumer Infrared) sensor, and the power button (also RGB lit).

The front ports on the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit

The lateral sides (looking at the mini PC in a horizontal position) are filled with ventilation grilles, and so is its bottom. They ensure optimal airflow and help the device stay quiet even in demanding activities when the processor or graphics card is operating at its maximum capacity.

The selection of ports on the back of the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit is impressive. You get four USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, a 2.5 Gb Ethernet port, a Thunderbolt USB-C, a 3.5mm analog stereo/optical audio combination jack (red illumination), two DisplayPort, and an HDMI port. You’ll also find here the power input and a Kensington Lock.

The back ports on the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit

Moving on to the insides of the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit, let’s see what hardware goodies await us. First, the soul of the computer: a soldered-down 12th-generation Intel Core processor, namely an Intel Core i7-12700H. Featuring a base TDP of 45 Watts, this CPU has fourteen cores (six performance cores and 8 efficient cores) and twenty threads, and it can reach a maximum speed of 4.70 GHz. Paired with it, we also get an Intel Arc A770M discrete graphics card that runs on a PCI Express 4.0 x16 interface and offers 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256 bits bus width.

CPU and GPU tech specs

The Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit doesn’t have any RAM or drives installed, so you’ll need to spend some additional money for some. When searching for these components, keep in mind that the mini PC can fit up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory running at 3200 MHz (there are two slots available) and up to three solid-state drives (two M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 4.0 and one M.2 2280 NVMe/SATA 3 PCIe 3.0). Mounting the RAM and SSDs is quite easy: remove the top panel (it has six screws), then remove the metal cover under it (also held by six screws), and then you get access to all the slots for RAM and solid-state drives. The review sample I received was pre-equipped with 12 GB of DDR4 and a Crucial P5 Plus 1TB SSD.

How to mount RAM and SSDs in the mini PC

Regarding the wired and wireless connectivity, I must point out that the mini PC offers excellent options. For the wired connections, we get an Intel i225-LM Gigabit Ethernet Controller that can transfer data at up to 2.5 Gbps, while for the wireless part, we get an Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1690i networking module. The WiFi card supports 2x2 MU-MIMO and the 802.11ax networking standard, can work on the 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz bands, and can reach a maximum data transfer rate of 3.0 Gbps. On top of all that, the Wi-Fi card also offers Bluetooth 5.2, useful for connecting mobile keyboards, mice, headsets, and more.

Last but not least, in terms of design and hardware specs, it’s worth mentioning that the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit, just like most small computers out there, uses an external power adapter. As this is a gaming machine, the 330 Watts adapter is quite large and bulky, as it must be capable of delivering enough power for the mini PC.

The power adapter of the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit

If you want to know more about the specifications of the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit, you can find its full technical sheet here (PDF file download).

Overall, I’m quite thrilled about the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit. It looks great and appears to be a solid choice for gaming, as well as for many other types of demanding workloads, including photo/video editing and computer-aided design (CAD).

Performance in benchmarks

Let’s see what the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit can do in real life. I’ll go through a series of productivity benchmarks, then we’ll see how it performs in games, and last but not least, we’re going to take a look at its temperatures and power consumption. But, before any of that, you should know that to get a clearer picture, I will compare the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit with a gaming laptop I use daily: an ASUS ROG Strix G17 G713 equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor (eight cores, sixteen threads, top speed of 4.4 GHz), 16 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card with 4 GB of GDDR6. I chose to make this comparison because the hardware components inside the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit are similar to what you’d find in a gaming laptop rather than inside a full-fledged desktop gaming PC.

I began by benchmarking the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit with CPU-Z. In the Single Thread test, its processor had an excellent score of 723 points, which means 28% more performance than what I get from my laptop’s processor.

Benchmark results in CPU-Z Single Thread

In CPU-Z’s Multi-Thread test, the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit proved to be much faster than the processor in my laptop as well. With a score of 7739 points, the mini PC was almost 36% faster.

Benchmark results in CPU-Z Multi Thread

Next, I ran the Cinebench R23 benchmark to measure the rendering speed of the mini PC. I got a score of 15885 points in the multi-thread test for the processor, which is a 49% increase compared to the result of the CPU in my laptop.

Benchmark results in Cinebench R23

7-Zip is a file compression app that can also be used to check how fast a processor is. The compression test was the only one in which the processor on the mini PC had a lower score than the one on my laptop. It managed only half (50%) of the speed I measured on the laptop. As far as I can tell from older reviews I’ve done for Intel processors, it seems that the compression speed in 7-Zip is a weak point for all the 12th Gen Intel Core CPUs.

Benchmark results in 7-Zip Compression

In the decompression test, though, the increased number of threads and maximum speed of the processor in the mini PC led to increased performance too. Not by much, but measurable, nonetheless (3.8%).

Benchmark results in 7-Zip Decompression

Next, I ran PCMark 10, a benchmark suite that evaluates the system’s performance in daily activities. That means web browsing, video conferencing, app start-up times, productivity, and digital content creation. The Intel NUC 12 mini PC Enthusiast Kit scored 6802 points, which is better than 85% of all results and comparable to a gaming desktop PC made in 2020. It’s also 8% better than what I got on the ASUS ROG Strix G17 G713 gaming laptop.

Benchmark results in PCMark 10

On the same note of daily use, I also checked how fast the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit is when browsing the internet. For that, I used the JetStream 2 benchmark in Google Chrome. The Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit had an excellent score of 277 points, meaning that it was also roughly 15% faster than my gaming laptop.

Benchmark results in JetStream 2

Then, I moved on to running a couple of gaming benchmarks, starting with 3DMark’s Speed Way, designed to evaluate performance in games that use DirectX 12 Ultimate. The Intel Arc A770M GPU managed a good result.

It outmatched the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 in my laptop by a whole lot, though one of the main reasons is probably the meager 4 GB of graphics RAM on it. The score of 2013 points obtained by the Intel Arc A770M GPU position it somewhere between a mobile Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 and a GeForce RTX 3060.

Benchmark results in 3DMark Speed Way

Next, I tested the mini PC in a few games to see what it can do in real life (pun intended). I started with CyberPunk 2077, an extremely beautiful game that demands a lot of performance from the graphics card. In 1080p resolution and on the High preset, the Intel Arc A770M rendered an average of 70 frames per second. That’s an 84% performance increase from my laptop’s Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050.

Benchmark results in Cyberpunk 2077

The following game tested was Total War WARHAMMER III, a turn-based strategy and real-time tactics gameplay game that needs a capable processor and graphics card to run at its best. The Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit managed to render an average of 77 frames per second in 1080 using the High graphics preset. It’s an excellent result and a better one than what my laptop can offer.

Benchmark results in Total War WARHAMMER III

The third game I tested was the car racing game F1 22. Set to run in 1080p resolution and on the High graphics preset, the Intel Arc A770M GPU managed an excellent fps (frames per second) of no more, no less than 128. Again, it’s more than I can dream of getting from my laptop’s GeForce RTX 3050. 🙂

Benchmark results in F1 22

To test the temperatures and power needs of the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit, I ran AIDA64’s stability test. The highest temperature I witnessed for the Intel Core i7-12700H processor was 94 degrees Celsius (201 Fahrenheit), and the maximum total power consumption of the mini PC (without a monitor) was 317 Watts. As it appears, the airflow is good, and the coolers manage to keep inside temperatures at bay. Also, the power adapter is clearly capable of providing all the current required by the mini PC, even under full load.

The results I got in benchmarks show that the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit is capable of running modern games in 1080p resolution at good frame rates and high graphics quality settings. With some tinkering on some of the graphics settings of your favorite game, you should be able to achieve the same in 1440p resolution.

What’s your opinion about the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit?

Now you know what the Intel NUC 12 Mini PC Enthusiast Kit has to offer. You know what its strengths are, and you’re aware of its weaknesses. Before leaving, would you mind telling me what you like about it and whether you consider it a good choice for you as a gamer? Don’t forget: you can always write a comment in the comments section to share your opinions.