MSI Cubi NUC 1M Review (Core 7 150U)

NUCs are a line of small form factor, compact PCs originally developed and designed by Intel. Back in 2023, Intel decided to cease development and hand over the reins of the NUC brand to Asus. However, with the licence being non-exclusive, we now have NUCs being developed by other companies – including the Cubi NUC 1M from MSI. Featuring a 0.8L chassis which houses an Intel Core CPU, up to 64GB of DDR5 memory and up to 2TB M.2 NVMe storage, can this tiny workstation provide enough performance to get the job done?

Timestamps:

00:00 Start
00:37 Cubi NUC / Pricing
01:40 Hardware specification
02:42 Gen 4 SSD / Performance
03:22 Motherboard I/O / connectors
04:55 Size, design and build quality
06:16 Taking it apart
06:45 Testing methodology
07:01 Cinebench R23 multi core
07:45 Cinebench R23 single core
08:25 3DMark TimeSpy
08:40 AIDA64 Memory bandwidth
09:46 PCMark 10
10:20 Real world use
11:08 Can you game on it?
12:06 Power, heat and noise
13:33 Closing Thoughts

Specifications:

• CPU
  • Intel® Core™ 7 processor 150U (12M Cache, 1.80 GHz up to 5.40 GHz)
  • Intel® Core™ 5 processor 120U (12M Cache, 1.40 GHz up to 5.00 GHz)
  • Intel® Core™ 3 processor 100U (10M Cache, 1.20 GHz up to 4.70 GHz)
• Graphics
  • Intel® Graphics
• Memory Type – DDR5 5200 MT/s
• Module Type – SO-DIMM
• Max Capacity – Max 64GB
• M.2 slots – 2
• Wireless LAN –  Intel Wireless AX211 + Bluetooth v5.3, Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200 + Bluetooth 5.4
• LAN – 2x Intel I226-V
• HDMI out –  2x HDMI 2.1 with CEC support
• Thunderbolt – 1x Thunderbolt 4 (DP 1.4 alt-mode up to 4K@60Hz / PD-out 15W / PD-in
  up to 100W), 1x Thunderbolt 4 (DP 1.4 alt-mode up to 4K@60Hz / PD-out 15W)
• VESA size – 100 x 100 mm
• Product Dimension  – (WxDxH) (mm) 135.6 x 132.5 x 50.10

You can purchase the MSI Cubi NUC 1M with varying specifications starting at roughly £550 from CyberPower PC HERE.

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Pros:

• Solid single core performance.
• Efficient CPU power usage.
• Quiet.
• Easy upgradability of memory and storage.
• Generous I/O.

Cons:

• Expensive.
• Weak multicore performance when compared to AMD-based competitors.

KitGuru says: While on the expensive side when compared to the competition, the Cubi NUC 1M is a small, sleek machine that offers decent single core performance. 

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