MSI Cubi NUC CubiNUC13MQ227 2024, Core i5-1345U (Max.: ) 10C/12T 12MB Cache, 16GB, 1TB SSD, Black

The MSI Cubi NUC CubiNUC13MQ227 is a compact mini desktop built for office work and tight spaces. It handles productivity tasks well with a Core i5-1345U, 16GB of RAM, and a fast 1TB SSD, plus it can drive four displays. Gaming is a non-starter with Iris Xe graphics, and the price is steep, but for business deployments it makes a lot of sense.

The Core i5-1345U is a 10-core, 12-thread chip with a 1.6GHz base clock. In our database, it lands in the 33rd percentile for CPU performance among desktops, which sounds mediocre until you remember this thing is the size of a sandwich. For everyday office work, it's snappy. Apps open fast, multitasking feels smooth, and the 16GB of DDR5 gives you plenty of headroom. The 1TB NVMe SSD sits at the 73rd percentile for storage, so file transfers and boot times are well above average.

The weak spot is graphics. The Iris Xe sits at the 14th percentile, which is disappointing if you had any hopes of light gaming or video editing. It'll handle 4K video playback and basic photo work, but anything GPU-heavy will chug. The port selection is solid at the 60th percentile, with Thunderbolt 4, two USB-C, four USB-A, and dual HDMI out. You can run four displays total, which is genuinely useful for traders, analysts, or anyone who likes a wall of screens.

Compared to the HP OMEN GT22-3080 or the Lenovo Legion Tower 5a Gen 10, the Cubi NUC looks like a toy. Those machines are gaming towers with dedicated GPUs that will absolutely crush this little box in any graphics workload. The Legion Tower 5a Gen 10, for example, is built for gaming and will run circles around the Iris Xe. But those towers are huge, loud, and power-hungry. The Cubi NUC sips power and disappears behind your monitor.

The Dell Tower Plus EBT2250 is a more interesting comparison. It's a business-focused tower, so it shares some DNA with the Cubi NUC in terms of target audience. But it's still a full-size desktop. If you need a machine that can take a GPU upgrade later, the Dell or the CLX SET TGMSETRTU5204BM make more sense. The Cubi NUC is a closed box. What you buy is what you get forever.

At $1,279 USD, the Cubi NUC is a tough sell if you're just looking at raw specs. You can get a traditional tower with a faster CPU and a real GPU for less money. But that's not the point. You're paying for the form factor, the vPro support, and the three-year advance replacement warranty. For a business deploying dozens of these in an office, that warranty and remote management are worth real money. For a home user, it's harder to justify unless desk space is genuinely at a premium.

The MSI Cubi NUC CubiNUC13MQ227 is a mini desktop aimed squarely at office workers and anyone who wants a real PC without a tower hogging their desk. It's built around an Intel Core i5-1345U, a 10-core chip that sips power, plus 16GB of DDR5 and a 1TB NVMe SSD. At around $1,279 USD, it's not cheap for what it is, but you're paying for the tiny footprint and some genuinely useful connectivity. The whole thing weighs 1.44kg and can hide behind a monitor or mount on a wall, which is the whole point of a machine like this.

People searching for a compact desktop for home office use will find a lot to like here. The Cubi NUC handles spreadsheets, video calls, and a dozen browser tabs without breaking a sweat. It ships with Windows 11 Pro and even has vPro Enterprise support, so IT departments can manage it remotely. That's a big deal for businesses buying these in bulk.

But if you're wondering whether this little box can game, the answer is a hard no. The Intel Iris Xe graphics are fine for pushing pixels on a 4K monitor, but they're not built for modern titles. This is a productivity machine first, and it knows it.

Skip this if you want to play games, edit video, or do any kind of 3D work. The Iris Xe graphics are a real letdown for those tasks, and there's no way to add a dedicated GPU later. If you're a home user who just wants a general-purpose desktop and doesn't care about size, you'll get more bang for your buck from a traditional tower like the Dell Tower Plus EBT2250 or even a mid-range gaming desktop. And if you're on a tight budget, the $1,279 price tag will sting when a $700 tower with similar specs exists.

Should you buy the MSI Cubi NUC CubiNUC13MQ227? If you're outfitting an office, a reception desk, or a digital signage setup, yes. It's compact, quiet, easy to manage, and the four-display support is a genuine productivity boost. The three-year advance replacement warranty means a dead unit gets swapped fast, which is exactly what businesses want to hear.

If you're a home user looking for a general-purpose desktop, think hard about whether you need the tiny size. You can get more performance for less money in a traditional tower. And if you want to play games at all, look elsewhere. This is a tool for getting work done in small spaces, and it's good at that. Just don't ask it to be something it's not.