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The Asus NUC 14 Essential “Mill Canyon” mini PC is a small desktop with support for WiFi 6E and 2.5 GbE LAN network connectivity, support for up to three 4K displays, and support for up to an 8-core Intel Core N 355 “Twin Lake” processor.
But it’s also one of the most affordable NUC systems available, with prices starting at around $170 for a barebones model featuring an Intel N150 chip. First introduced last fall, the NUC 14 Essential is now available for purchase.
I was made aware of this by a press release from Simply NUC, which is selling fully configured models for $349 and up. But you can also find barebones configurations from retailers like Connection.com with prices starting at just over $170.
While I’m usually wary of buying from stores that don’t even bother to includes pictures or specs on their product pages, redditor adam2222 recently posted a short review of an entry-level NUC 14 Essential purchased from Connection, suggesting that the store really does have the little PC in stock and ready to ship.
The NUC 14 Essential “Mill Canyon” is a 135 x 115 x 36mm (5.3″ x 4.5″ x 1.4″) computer available with four processor options:
| Chip | Generation | Cores | Threads | Max freq | L3 cache | Intel Graphics (iGPU) | TDP |
| Core 3 N355 | Twin Lake | 8 | 8 | 3.9 GHz | 6MB | 32EU / up to 1.35 GHz | 15W |
| Intel N97 | Alder Lake-N | 4 | 4 | 3.6 GHz | 6MB | 24 EU / up to 1.2 GHz | 12W |
| Core N250 | Twin Lake | 4 | 4 | 3.8 GHz | 6MB | 32EU / up to 1.25 GHz | 6W |
| Core N150 | Twin Lake | 4 | 4 | 3.6 GHz | 6MB | 24EU / up to 1 GHz | 6W |
Each model officially supports up to 16GB of DDR5-4800 memory, although I suspect you could get away with using a 32GB SODIMM as that seems to be the maximum amount that’s actually supported by Alder Lake-N and Twin Lake systems.
There’s also a single M.2 2280 slot with support for a PCIe Gen 3×4 or SATA SSD, an intel AX2211 wireless card and Realtek RTL8125BG-CG Ethernet controller
Ports include:
- 1 x HDMI 2.1
- 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
- 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (10 Gbps with DisplayPort 1.4)
- 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (10 Gbps data only)4 x USB #.2 Gen 2 Type-A
- 1 x USB 2.0 Type-A
- 1 x 2.5 Gb Ethernet
- 1 x 3.5mm audio
- 1 x DC power input
The computer comes with a 65W power adapter.