Asus Reveals New Mini-PC Packing an Intel Meteor Lake CPU

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Meteor Lake hits the mini-PC market

Asus Mini PCI
(Image credit: ASUS)

Liliputing shared details of a new Asus Mini-PC coming soon, packing one of  Intel's upcoming 14th Gen Meteor Lake CPUs. The system is known as the PN65 and features a very compact 120 x 130 x 58mm form factor. Furthermore, due to the new architecture, the system comes with the latest generation of connectivity standards, including 2.5G internet, Wi-Fi 6E wireless connectivity, and DDR5 SO-DIMM memory support.

According to Asus' spec sheet, the mini-PC will be optioned with one or several of Intel's upcoming 28W mobile Meteor Lake processors featuring Intel Iris Xe graphics. Meteor Lake is Intel's next-generation CPU architecture with several key enhancements over Raptor Lake, like Intel's denser and more efficient Intel 4 node and the integration of a new packaging strategy known as tiles. Meteor Lake will be arriving very soon, and we've already begun to see several prototype Meteor Lake products at Computex.

The Asus Mini-PC will come with a texturized matte-black finish, sporting I/O at the front and rear of the chassis. The front will come with two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports and a single Type-C port with the same specifications. The front will also include a single mic headphone jack combo and a single RGB indicator.

(Image credit: ASUS)

The rear I/O is far more expansive, with four USB ports in total, two of which are 3.2 Gen 2 ports, another two are older 2.0 versions, and finally, another 3.2 Gen 2 port with DisplayPort 1.4 connectivity integrated into a Type-C connection. For more display outputs, there are two standard HDMI outputs, and for networking there's a single Intel RJ45 ethernet jack with 2.5G connectivity. According to Asus' spec sheet, a single "configurable port" can be re-purposed as an HDMI port, DisplayPort, COM, VGA, or another 2.5G LAN port.

As is traditional with mini-PCs, this system also supports VESA mounting, to mimic an All-In-One system keeping the PC hidden away from sight. Storage configurations are plentiful with this system, with the option of two M.2 2280 SSDs and an additional 2.5' slot for laptop HDDs or 7mm SSDs. With all three drive slots populated, you can have as much as 6TB of storage capacity in this system while utilizing each slot's maximum storage capacity.

We don't know the PC's performance figures or its release date or price. Still, we can expect this system to be an excellent solution for professionals and businesses with a lot of power in a small package if Meteor Lake's rumored performance claims are legit.

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

4 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bit_user
    Why are there regular DDR5 SO-DIMMs? This doesn't need LPDDR5, but it surprises me that all DDR5 SO-DIMMs aren't LP.

    The main thing I don't like about these types of min-PCs is how loud their fans can get, when you push them hard. That's why I'm trying to build my own, but even ~25 W is a lot of heat to dissipate passively, without a huge heatsink.
    Reply
  • tek-check
    Disdappointing device. No USB4 or Thunderbolt port, no WiFi7, no HDMI 2.1 FRL port.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    tek-check said:
    Disdappointing device. No USB4 or Thunderbolt port, no WiFi7, no HDMI 2.1 FRL port.
    Whether it's disappointing depends on the price. If this is positioned at the lower-end of the market, I'm not surprised at their absence, since those are features only a power-user would want.
    Reply
  • TheZander
    bit_user said:
    Whether it's disappointing depends on the price. If this is positioned at the lower-end of the market, I'm not surprised at their absence, since those are features only a power-user would want.
    I own an i5 and an i7 Intel brand NUC. Both were very affordable. Both have thunderbolt.
    Asus simply doesn't want you to be able to use any old Thunderbolt eGPU when they have their own proprietary eGPUs that they can charge obscene amounts of money for.
    Reply