Whoa. A gaming P C dressed for a sword fight! A very expensive costume. Hold that thought. It's the R O G N U C 16 Phantom Blade Zero Edition, from Asus! A three-litre gaming mini P C, from about 3,740 dollars, China only. For fans who want a collector's piece. This is Tech After Dark: seven sources, one full review, zero hands touched. New thing one: obsidian black, crimson accents, engraved blades!

Plus a see-through panel showing Soul, the game's hero. It's a regular N U C 16 in cosplay. Best cosplay ever. Thing two: three fans, and one only cools the memory! Over one shared vapor chamber, a flat heat-spreading plate. Asus claims under 38 decibels while gaming. Thing three: the stand has a G-sensor. It knows if it's upright or flat! And tunes the cooling to match. Plus one thumbscrew opens it for R A M and storage.

Okay, the guts. What's in there? A 24-core Intel Core Ultra 9. Asus pitches it for gaming, streaming and editing at once. Up to a laptop R T X 5080 with 16 gigs of video memory. Big games, high settings. In a box the size of a hardcover book? Roughly. Plus 32 gigs of R A M, expandable to 128, and up to two terabytes of storage. Small enough for my backpack. Just saying. The standard N U C 16 weighs about 3.1 kilos, plus a 380-watt power brick.

Enjoy the hike. So what did reviewers find? Noticias3D reviewed the standard N U C 16 and gave it their Recommended award. Their words: a beast, squeezed down to nothing, with top connectivity. Beast! They measured under 43 decibels at full load. Quiet, but not Asus's 38. Okay, okay. That's fair. Starry Hope, citing TheNextWeb: Asus's own benchmark shows about 2.3 percent over last year's N U C 2025.

Wait. Two point three percent? That's a rounding error! Their line: the problem is the price relative to the performance gain. Fine. How much, and when can I, borrow one? On sale in China now, about 3,740 dollars to 4,720 dollar converted. No other markets announced. Nova's Catch: the laptop G P U is soldered. No upgrades, ever. That 5080 is forever. Rivals! Who's it fighting? The standard N U C 16: same chip, same 5080, no art, from 3,799 dollars in the U S.

Last year's R O G N U C 2025: same 5080, only about 2.3 percent slower in Asus's own test, for less money. And the Edition 20 jumps to an R T X 5090 with gold accents. Ooh. Shiny. Verdict: wait. Unless you love Phantom Blade Zero, the plain models make more sense. I'm a 5.6. I'm a 7.2! It's gorgeous, it's tiny, it's a beast! After Dark Score: 6.4, first on our new P C board. Rocco, stop drooling over the pictures.