When you think of gaming PCs, you may think of the Minisforum NUCXi7. Mine does, too. But don't underestimate this beast, which packs a serious punch in a body slimmer than a PS5.

With a powerful Intel i7-11800HCPU and RTX 3070 mobile GPU, the NUCXi7 makes the case for a small form factor gaming PC with laptop-grade parts Minisforum is a great choice for any desktop or created a great machine for a living room console setup.

As you can see from this Minisforum NUCXi7 review, I couldn't be happier with this PC. I wish it had more ports, but it does the job admirably with very little noise.

The NUCXi7 is a single CPU/GPU configuration, but it does have some options when it comes to RAM and storage. This PC starts at $1,309 for a model with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

For 512GB of storage, you'll have to pay $1,339; a model with 32GB of RAM and 512GB of storage costs $1,409, and the top-of-the-line model with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage costs $1,469. from Minisforum Directly from Minisforum.

Mini gaming PCs like the NUCXi7 are few and far between. You can compare it to the Intel NUC 11 Extreme, which supports a full-size graphics card, but for about the same price as the NUCXi7, you get the i7-11700B and GPU. In other words, while the Minisforum option is pricey (certainly more expensive than a gaming machine), it is one of the least expensive options for a gaming PC of this form factor and level.

There is also the NUCXi5 with an Intel i5-11400H CPU and Nvidia RTX 3060 laptop GPU.

We call the NUCXi7 a mini-gaming PC because it is much smaller than a traditional gaming desktop. It is closer to a large gaming laptop, minus the screen. It is rather tall and very slim at 80.1 mm; think of it like a thinner PS5, since the PS5 is 393.5 mm tall.

On the surface, there is a skull logo like Intel's gaming NUCs, which might put some people off. Certainly not to my aesthetic tastes; I wish Minisforum had left the front of the NUCXi7 blank; the back of the PC is almost entirely vented. This helps keep the machine cooler and the fans quieter.

The NUCXi7 is unfortunately designed to stand upright and comes with a base that holds it in place quite securely. The front is fairly bare except for three USB-A 3.2 ports, an SD card reader, and a 3.5mm combo audio jack. On the back are USB-C Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, and a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port.

The port selection on the NUCXi7 is disappointing: the HDMI and Thunderbolt 4 ports alone can output to two monitors, but a proper Thunderbolt dock could connect to many more. 3 USB-A ports is a Three USB-A ports seems a bit small for this size. (Considering that the keyboard and mouse take up two of the three, you can see why I was disappointed.

I would have liked to see DisplayPort/mini DisplayPort in addition to HDMI, but at least the Ethernet port is 2.5Gb. It seems a bit odd to have an SD card reader on a gaming PC, but with all this hardware power, the NUCXi7 could be a good choice for content creation.

Minisforum has added upgrade capabilities to the NUCXi7: SODIMM RAM can be upgraded up to 64GB and a second m.2 NVMe drive can be added; the NUCXi7 can be equipped with 4TB of ultra-fast NVMe storage along with 64GB of RAM. The NUCXi7 can be equipped with 4TB of ultra-fast NVMe storage along with 64GB of RAM. This would be a powerful and fast machine.

The NUCXi7 comes with laptop hardware including an i7-11800H processor, 16GB or 32GB of 3200MHz SODIMM RAM, and an RTX 3070 mobile variant. However, thanks to its design, it is kept much cooler than gaming laptops, helping to avoid thermal throttling, as we will soon see.

We have not tested a device with specs that exactly match the NUCXi7. So we pulled out two 11th generation gaming laptops for this comparison.

As both the Geekbench benchmark and the Handbrake transcode test show, the NUCXi7 even beats the i9-11900H-powered Razer Blade 17 (mid-2021) by a considerable margin. Despite having the same CPU, it outperforms the MSI Katana GF76; the NUCXi7 does a good job of dispersing heat, and the i7-11800H inside can run at full speed without risk of throttling.

GPU tests are the hardest to compare, as all three use different levels of the RTX 3000 series; all three are laptop versions, but the NUCXi7's 3070 put up a good fight. I expected the Razer Blade 17 to outperform this machine by quite a bit, but it only outperformed it on Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (on Ultra settings).

The NUCXi7 won most 3DMark benchmarks except Port Royal, which tests ray tracing. (The RTX3080 is the clear winner in this scenario because it can use more RT cores.)

Even better, the sound was barely audible under load. Even with the optional gaming mode enabled (via a button on the front of the PC), we could not hear the fans spinning. Surprising even to myself, given the reputation of gaming laptops to be small furnaces, the NUCXi7 probably has the advantage of not having a keyboard, touchpad, battery, or display. The massive cooling system that takes up most of the internal area certainly helps, too.

All of the above suggests that Minisforum has created a very powerful gaming machine. While there is certainly a price to pay for that power, I liked the way the NUCXi7 handled all the games I threw at it. Cyberpunk 2077, for example, was great at 1080p, medium to high settings with ray tracing and DLSS turned on. I am impressed that this PC can perform so powerfully for its size.

The NUCXi7 ships with Windows 11 Pro, but you can also install Linux; the Windows installation is relatively minimal, with some additional software to control audio. Everything else is Nvidia or Microsoft related. This is nice because I don't have to worry about uninstalling a lot of software before starting the game.

I tried to turn this into a Steam Machine using the unofficial Steam OS 3, the same OS that runs on the Steam Deck. However, this software is still quite buggy, especially on Nvidia GPUs (a noticeable problem on most Linux gaming PCs). So I left the NUCXi7 in Windows, set up my account to auto-login on startup, and told Steam to automatically launch in Big Picture mode.

While it's not a perfect setup yet, it's fun to use the NUCXi7 as a living room gaming machine; it's a thinner form factor than the PS5, more powerful (and quieter) than the PS5, and an excellent use case for the NUCXi7.

The NUCXi7 is a great gaming PC that can be used as a desktop or living room console. If the Steam OS is still too jacked up for you, stick with Windows like I did and set Steam to automatically launch in Big Picture mode upon login for a console-like experience.

The mobile RTX 3070 is a powerhouse, and the i7-11800H will chew up any task you set for it. User upgradable RAM and storage can make this PC even faster. It could do without the skull icon, but the form factor and temperatures were impressive as well.

But with prices starting at $1,309, the NUCXi7 is no replacement for a gaming console; it's nearly three times the price of a PS5, but it certainly has more power and a slimmer chassis. But if you want a small form factor gaming PC, the NUCXi7 or its smaller, less expensive NUCXi5 sibling should be at the top of your list.