Acer's Veriton NUC AI (starting at $1,249.99; $1,349.99 as tested) mini PC is a perfectly fine data-entry box for modern offices (or home offices) with lots of ports for its size, but it's clearly outperformed for the money. To its credit, the Veriton includes every connection the average white-collar worker could ask for—even a built-in fingerprint reader for secure logins. We tested a prebuilt version of the Veriton NUC; Acer also sells a barebones model without storage or an operating system, but with a less potent processor. (You can't adjust or upgrade the memory, in either case.) Our test model's slight 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD don't impress for the price. Give the Veriton a second thought if you see its price slashed; otherwise, look to the Geekom A9 Max or Apple Mac mini (2024, M4 Pro), both Editors' Choice award winners, for a superior mini desktop at a similar price.

Configurations: Light on Options, Not on Price

Acer's starting Veriton NUC AI configuration is the barebones version, at $1,249.99 (we saw it as low as $1,035 at this writing) for an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V processor with Intel Arc Graphics and 16GB of memory. Like many NUCs of yore, you get the option to supply your own storage and operating system in certain configurations. Intel Core Ultra 200V-series processors are system-on-chip-style parts, meaning the memory, graphics, wireless networking, and other key modules are all built into the CPU package and cannot be changed.

Our review unit steps things up significantly for just another $100. At a $1,349.99 list price (as low as $1,178 on Amazon at publish time), this Veriton configuration (model MP24uo1) includes a Core Ultra 7 256V CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB solid-state drive with Windows 11 Pro installed. Even at some retailers' reduced pricing, a 512GB SSD is scanty for the money. On the upside, each Veriton NUC AI includes a wired mouse and keyboard in the box.

Design: A NUC in Spirit

Being a business or work PC, the Veriton is designed to fade into the background of your workspace. It’s a discreet, lightweight black box that measures 1.7 by 5.2 by 5.2 inches (HWD). These measurements land the Veriton in the middle among the competitors we pitted it against in our benchmark testing (more on that in a bit), but it's still thoroughly a mini PC. You can place the Veriton anywhere on your desk and forget about it.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Identifiable design elements are scarce here, but the desktop features a glossy black Acer logo at the bottom-right of its top cover, while decorative carvings meant to suggest "AI" and a fingerprint reader sit on the left-hand side. (With that in mind, you may need to keep the desktop in arm's reach to make use of that security feature.) You'll find cooling vents on the left and right sides, while the front and back hold room for the ports.

While the Veriton technically counts as a NUC, the standard for barebones mini desktops that Intel started years ago, even the barebones model is not truly barebones. Why? It comes down to memory. As noted earlier, the Intel Core Ultra 200V family has the memory fixed on the chip, so you're stuck with the amount you get. Intel offers 16GB- and 32GB-equipped 200V chips; Acer says the Veriton NUC AI supports up to 32GB of RAM, but we couldn't find any 32GB configs for sale. People familiar with NUC systems will likely expect the memory to be as upgradable and replaceable as the SSD (many NUCs use SO-DIMMs), and this might lead to disappointment.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

At any rate, the Veriton's top cover is removable; you remove four screws from the PC's underside, just beside the rubber feet that the desktop stands on. After popping the top, you'll only need to remove the bracket-mounted fan to access the two M.2 SSD slots. In our configuration, one slot contained the 512GB boot drive; both slots support only Type-2280 SSDs.

Ports and Connectivity: A Veritable Work Hub

Acer's current mini desktop chassis design makes plenty of room for all of the essential wired and wireless connections a worker needs at home or in the office. On the front, you'll find two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, an audio jack, and a USB4 (not Thunderbolt) port with DisplayPort compatibility for modern connections.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Around back, Acer included an HDMI and a full DisplayPort output on the back for dedicated screen connections, with two more USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports beside them. Next to them, you'll find dual 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports. These are common on business-level machines for hardwired internet redundancy, and one port can serve as an exclusive intranet connection. For wireless internet and devices, the desktop includes Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 radios.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Performance Testing: A Basic White-Collar Workhorse

The Intel Core Ultra 7 256V processor in our Acer Veriton NUC AI MP24uo1 review unit has eight cores, with four Performance cores running at up to 4.8GHz. (The "AI" in this mini rig's name calls out the neural processor aboard the Intel SoC, capable of up to 48 trillion AI operations per second, qualifying this as a Copilot+ PC.) The Veriton performed well in a vacuum for productivity work, according to our most basic benchmarks; however, it struggled to compete with systems equipped with more memory and punchier chips at similar or lower prices.

Our comparison set begins with the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG ($1,149 as tested), containing an upgraded version of the Veriton's processor, followed by our $1,199 Asus NUC 15 Pro+ configuration with an H-class Core Ultra 9 CPU. We round out our PC-based comparisons with the Editors' Choice-award-holding Geekom A9 Max ($1,199, as tested), containing a top-end AMD mobile chip. Finally, we included the M4 Pro version of the latest Apple Mac mini desktop, seeing as its starting price ($1,399; $2,199 as tested) isn't far off from our Veriton's list price.

Productivity and Content Creation Tests

Our primary overall benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, puts a system through its paces in productivity apps ranging from web browsing to word processing and spreadsheet work. Its Full System Drive subtest measures a PC's storage throughput. (Macs are not compatible with the PCMark tests, so the Mac mini is not included in those charts below.)

Three more tests are CPU-centric or processor-intensive: Maxon's Cinebench 2024 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene; Primate Labs' Geekbench 6.3 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning; and we see how long it takes the video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 to convert a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution. 

Finally, workstation maker Puget Systems' PugetBench for Creators rates a PC's image-editing prowess with a variety of automated operations in the seminal photo editor Adobe Photoshop 25.

Acer's Veriton placed last in three of five tests, though at least it scored well above the 4,000-point baseline we expect from PCMark 10. While we didn’t expect killer performance from this configuration, you shouldn't pay this much for your hardware to get shown up, even at its sale price. Interestingly, the Veriton edged out the MSI Cubi's slightly stronger Core Ultra 7 258V CPU, particularly in Geekbench.

While it didn't prove much of a contender in testing, in real-world scenarios, the Acer Veriton operated fine. I bombarded it with my usual over-the-top browser-tab collection while chatting with friends and blasting music without issue. You likely won't get too far with intensive creative work on this thing, based on these results, but the Veriton will handle basic desk-job work easily. Just note that you'll see better throughput from some of these cheaper or similarly priced systems.

Graphics Tests

We challenge each reviewed system’s graphics with a quintet of animations or gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. The first pair, Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K), uses the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds. The second set, Steel Nomad's regular (4K) and Light (1440p) subtests, assesses gaming geometry and particle effects. A fifth test, Solar Bay, emphasizes ray-tracing performance. (We do not have 3DMark test results for the Mac mini, so it's not included in the charts below.)

What these scores did not reflect was how poorly the Acer Veriton rendered these benchmark tests visually. Its integrated graphics processor could not keep up with the harsh visual demands of these tests, especially the Steel Nomad suite. The alien desert environments flickered, and assets stretched within the scenes, which doesn't bode well for the Veriton's ability to handle demanding 3D graphics scenarios in games and GPU-accelerated applications.

Regardless, the Veriton landed near some competitors in the charts, suggesting parity with those systems. While I haven’t personally seen how the others operated during testing, it's at least clear that the Veriton is far from a go-to for graphics rendering. We're not counting this against the little guy, being a business box, but it's hard to ignore that even some cheaper PCs do better.