Mini PCs are all the rage at the moment, cramming laptop parts into a teeny-tiny space to give you a desktop that’s cheap and powerful, and at least a little bit upgradeable. But with most of them relying on AMD APUs, their gaming is limited. Can you make that setup work in a larger desktop form factor? Asus thinks you can, and at Computex it’s game to try.

The TUF Gaming T500 looks like a small-ish desktop tower, complete with a transparent window on the side to show off its parts. But while the pre-installed graphics card is obvious (an RTX 5060 Ti in this version). Take a gander above it, and you’ll see what looks like the smallest cooling setup ever on top of its processor, directly connected to a rear exhaust fan. It’s tiny because that’s a laptop processor, an Intel 13th-gen i5 or i7, depending on which version you buy. It’s also soldered in place — this is not an ATX or mATX motherboard, it’s proprietary. That CPU is the only one that the desktop will ever have.

Which is not to say there are no upgrade options. With a desktop-style PCIe slot for the graphics card, two DDR5 SO-DIMM (laptop) RAM slots, a pair of M.2 gen 4 slots for storage, and even two SATA ports, you’ve got plenty of options for just about everything except the processor. And that extra space means cooling is much easier and more efficient than on any laptop or mini PC. You can even upgrade the wireless with another M.2 card if you like.

The TUF series is Asus’ mid-range or budget gaming line, as opposed to ROG. So the T500 is, nominally, mid-range in terms of performance. But with a starting price of $1300, it’s not really hitting below many pre-built gaming desktops without its restrictions. A little quick shopping on PCPartPicker let me build a substantially more powerful desktop from parts, with an upgradeable 13th-gen Core i5, for at the same level…and that was even including a wildly inflated RTX 5060 Ti price in the current market. And that’s the top-end option according to the specs, I don’t think you’ll get that card for $1300.

So like Adam on the floor at Computex, I am skeptical of to whom this gaming PC will actually appeal. Granted, there are plenty who just want to play and aren’t all that concerned about what’s under the metaphorical hood…even if you can see through this one. But I still think it needs to offer a better value compromise if it’s going to stand out from other pre-built designs.

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Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld