Intel NUC 12 Pro review

I’ve already reviewed several mini PCs on Tweakers this spring, but the latest model of the “original” is still missing. Until now, because Intel recently provided us with the NUC 12 Pro with i7 processor. How does the NUC compare to recently tested mini PCs with AMD and Apple CPUs? In this review I will find you.

As the full name suggests, Intel’s NUC PCs are primarily focused on business use. Partly for this reason, there is a special model number for each piece of fiddling and as an unsuspecting consumer you end up in a veritable maze. Pricewatch gives no fewer than thirty results if you search for NUC 12. Before we look at the tested device, we first give a little guide.

For starters, you can choose between a Kit and a mini PC. The vast majority of the range consists of kits, which means they are barebones, without a pre-installed hard drive, memory and operating system. After “NUC12” is followed by “WS” for Wall Street Canyon, the codename for this NUC generation, and the letter H (high model with 2.5-inch drive bay) or K (lower and without 2.5-inch drive bay). Then i3, i5, or i7 tells you the processor type, with v5 or v7 standing for the business variant with vPro support. Finally, there is a variant of almost every version without and power cable for sale. To be clear: you always get the adapter, but you’ll have to supply yourself with a C5 power cable (“Mickey Mouse cable”).

Well, now you know that the NUC12WSKi7 is the latest NUC without a 2.5-inch drive bay and with a Core i7-1260P CPU. This is a chip of the Alder Lake generation with four P-cores and eight electronic cores. The clock scale maxes out at 3.4GHz and the P cores go up to 4.7GHz. By default, this CPU has a tdp of 28W, but as we’ll see later, the i7 in the NUC is set a bit higher.

To complete the system, install two SO-DIMMs with a maximum of DDR4-3200 and an SSD. It is best placed in an M.2 slot with a PCIe 4.0 x4 slot, but you can also fit the second in the shorter M.2 2242 slot. As far as bandwidth is concerned, you are limited to PCIe 3.0 x1 or good old SATA. In practice, this means a maximum of 1TB SSD.

At the time of writing, you’re paying €629 for the bare-bones we tested. That’s €70 more than the previously tested Minisforum Venus UM690 barebones version with a Ryzen 9 6900HX CPU, and just €60 less than a full entry-level Mac mini.

However, it can be much cheaper. The i3 version of the Intel NUC 12 Pro is available from €360 and the i5 model is priced at €487 at the time of writing.