In addition to the ASUS NUC 14 Pro (which I recently reviewed), ASUS has also released the ASUS NUC 14 Performance (formally known as Scorpion Canyon) as part of their Intel 14th Generation (Meteor Lake) lineup.
Compared to the ASUS NUC 14 Pro and Pro+, the ASUS NUC 14 Performance offers more powerful CPU options and an additional NVIDIA discrete (mobile) graphics that can be used for a variety of use cases and workloads including the hot topic of AL/ML exploration.
Thanks to the SimplyNUC team who provided me access to the ASUS NUC 14 Performance kit for this review! Let's dive right in 😀
Compute
The ASUS NUC 14 Performance uses the new Intel 14th Generation (Meteor Lake) processors, which is part of the new Intel Core Ultra Processor (Series 1) brand and is only available in the higher-end CPU SKU options:
- Intel Core Ultra 7 155H
- Intel Core Ultra 9 185H
Unlike with previous generations of the Intel Hybrid CPU processors like the Intel 12th Gen (Alder Lake) or 13th Gen (Raptor Lake), where there are two types of CPU Cores: P-Core (Performance) and E-Core (Efficiency), Meteor Lake introduces a brand new architecture that now includes a third type of CPU core called Low-Power Efficiency Cores (LPE-Core).
For example, the ASUS NUC 14 Performance kit that I am using has an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H which includes 6 x P-Cores, 8 E-Cores & 2 x LPE-Cores. By using CPU-Z to benchmark the individual cores, I have observed the following association across P, E & LPE-Cores for those interested in applying specific CPU affinities:
An important thing to note is that LPE-Cores can NOT be disabled in the system BIOS and this means from an ESXi perspective, regardless of disabling the P-Cores or E-Cores, you will always have two types of non-uniform processors, which will require using the ESXi kernel option to boot a system with non-uniform CPU processors. Furthermore, in the past you could disable just the E-Cores which means only the P-Cores would be visible to ESXi and you could benefit from Hyperthreading.
With Meteor Lake processors, because LPE-Cores can not be disabled, you will not be able to benefit from Hyperthreading as ESXi will automatically disable that because of the non-uniform CPU cores. On a related topic to Hyperthreading, Intel has announced that they will be removing the Hyperthreading technology with the next generation of Intel processors with the Lunar Lake architecture, so just something to be aware of going forward.
For memory, the ASUS NUC 14 Performance can support up to 96GB (2 x SODIMM) using the new 48GB DDR5 non-binary SO-DIMM memory modules, which I have shared my experience with using the Mushkin Redline in the past.
Network
The ASUS NUC 14 Performance comes with just a single Intel i226 (2.5GbE) network adaptor, which is fully recognized by ESXi 8.x and later. It would have been nice if a secondary network adaptor was included but it seems with the post-Intel NUC Extreme kits, the general design for these more performant kits has been to go back to a single network adaptor.
With that said, if you require additional networking, you can also use the single Thunderbolt 4 port with these Thunderbolt 10GbE solutions for ESXi or use USB-based networking with the popular USB Network Native Driver for ESXi Fling, supporting over two dozen types of USB-based network adapters. Unlike previous performant kits, you would typically have at least two Thunderbolt 4 ports, but I suspect due to additional graphics capabilities, those are taking up the additional PCIe lanes, you will need to decide whether the single Thunderbolt 4 will be used for additional networking or storage.
Storage
The ASUS NUC 14 Performance is well equipped on storage, supporting up to 3 x M.2 PCIe x4 Gen 4 (2280) which will give you all the VMware storage options from local VMFS to vSAN OSA/ESA as well as additional device for installing and running ESXi!
For additional storage, you can also use the single Thunderbolt 4 port and add these Thunderbolt M.2 NVMe solutions for ESXi providing you with more storage capacity and configuration options. Unlike previous performant kits, you would typically have at least two Thunderbolt 4 ports, but I suspect due to additional graphics capabilities, those are taking up the additional PCIe lanes, you will need to decide whether the single Thunderbolt 4 will be used for additional networking or storage.
Graphics
The graphics capabilities is where the ASUS NUC 14 Performance really shines and can included either an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (Core Ultra 9) or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (Core Ultra 7), which is perfect for anyone looking to play with AI/ML, including using our Private AI with NVIDIA (PAIF-N) offer.
NVIDIA Graphics
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 can be successfully passthrough to a Windows VM (Windows 11) and after installing the required NVIDIA guest driver (561.09), the device is full detected as you can see from the screenshot below.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 can also be successfully passthrough to a Linux VM (Ubuntu 24.04) and device is automatically detected as you can see from the screenshot below.
Intel Integrated Graphics (iGPU)
The ASUS NUC 14 Performance also includes an Intel Arc integrated graphics (iGPU) with eight Xe-Cores and can be successfully passthrough to an Ubuntu VM, which has support for the latest Intel Graphics Drivers. For setup instructions, please refer to this blog post HERE.
Note: iGPU passthrough to a Windows VM is not functional with the Intel Graphics Driver for Windows which throws Error Code 43.
AI Accelerator
An exciting new capability to the ASUS NUC 14 Performance is an integrated Neural Processing Unit or NPU that is built right into the Meteor Lake SoC (system-on-chip) that is optimized for low power AI Inferencing. The great news is that the Intel NPU can also be used by ESXi and for more setup details and usage, check out my recent blog post HERE.
Form Factor
The NUC 14 Performance measures at 27 x 18 x 6 cm and is slightly wider than an Intel NUC 12 Enthusiast (Serpent Canyon) which also includes a discrete Intel GPU, but a lot thinner when comparing to previous generations. Overall, the form factor of the system is fairly compact given the additional graphics capabilities.
ESXi
The latest release of ESXi 8.0 Update 3 runs on the ASUS NUC 14 performance without any issues, no additional drivers are required as the Community Networking Driver for ESXi has been productized as part of the ESXi 8.0 release. If you want to install ESXi 7.x, you will need to use of the Community Networking Driver for ESXi Fling to recognize the onboard network devices.
As mentioned earlier, due to non-uniform CPU cores that will exists across P, E and LPE-Cores, you will need to apply the required ESXi kernel option to boot a system with non-uniform CPU processors.
VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)
ASUS NUC 14 Performance can also be a nice kit to deploy either a physical VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) if you have several of these units or you can deploy it on a single host using Nested ESXi, which is made possible by leveraging the new NVMe Tiering capability as part of vSphere 8.0 Update 3 and as you can see from the screenshot below.
I was able to expand the amount of available memory from the physical 96GB of DRAM to almost ~500GB using the 400% configuration! With the Intel Core Ultra 9 version of the ASUS NUC 14 Performance, I was able to successfully deploy VCF using Holodeck without any noticeable performance impact, but it did take slightly longer (~3hrs) to deploy when compared to non-Meteor Lake based setups.
Thanks for the comment!