The MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG is a small-form PC with full Microsoft Copilot+ accreditation – and it may be the answer to your AI prayers

To date, Microsoft's efforts to drive AI features into Windows have been largely limited to laptops carrying the Copilot+ branding. Now, MSI has decided that anyone wanting a desktop mini PC should be able to access the same AI tricks and toys like Recall, Studio Effects, Live Captions, Paint Cocreator, and Click to Do.

Now, this is no place to debate the benefits or lack thereof of Windows' local AI capabilities, but if you think it's all a bit of a waste of time or worse, then the new MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG is probably not the mini PC for you. On the other hand, if you think features like Recall and Studio Effects are the best things since sliced bread, it could be the answer to your prayers.

MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG: Design

MSI's mini PCs have remained largely unchanged for several years, all featuring variations on a grey metal box with rounded corners. The new NUC AI+ 2MG maintains that tradition, measuring 135.6 x 132.5 x 50.1mm and weighing just under 1.7 kg. That makes it an easy box to hide away or hang behind a monitor, for which MSI bundles a VESA bracket.

Look at the front panel of the 2MG, and two things jump out at you. The first is the Copilot+ button on the right, and the second is the fingerprint scanner built into the power button on the far left.

The fingerprint scanner isn't just there for basic system security but also because some Copilot+ features like Recall will only work on PCs with some form of biometric security.

The Copilot button, as you'd expect, launches the Windows Copilot interface, though it's easier to click the desktop icon rather than reach over to the box and push the button. Having a Copilot key on a laptop keyboard makes sense; having one on the front of a mini PC, less so.

If MSI doesn't demonstrate the almost fetishistic desire to squeeze as many ports into as small a space as possible, as some of the Chinese competition like the tiny Geekom A5 does, the NUC AI+ 2MG is still a usefully well-connected machine.

On the front panel, you'll find two 10Gbps USB-A ports, a MicroSD card reader, and a 3.5mm audio jack, while around the back, there are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI 2.1 video output, dual 2.5G RJ-45 Ethernet jacks, and a brace of USB-A 2.0 ports. All that's missing is a full-sized DisplayPort video output.

Usefully, the right-hand USB-C port supports 100W power delivery, so you can run the NUC AI+ 2MG from a USB-C charger as well as from the bundled rat-and-tail DC power supply. The only holes in the sides of the 2MG are for a Kensington lock and the remote wired power button that comes in the box.

The remote power button's usability is rather diminished by the absence of a built-in fingerprint scanner, which means you still have to touch the power button on the box to log in. That rather negates the point of having a remote power button to start with.

That same limitation applies to the NUC AI+ 2MG's support of MSI's Power Link system, which lets you turn a PC on by pushing the power button on a connector monitor. Again, you'll need to touch the scanner on the NUC AI+ 2MG's power button.

Unusually for a mini PC, there's no option to add more memory or storage. Given that the RAM is built into the Intel Core Ultra S2 chipset, the former came as no surprise, but looking at the amount of free space inside the 2MG, the absence of a second SSD mount was rather bemusing.

On a positive note, there is easy access to the single M.2 2280 SSD and the wireless card, the latter an Intel AX211 affair supporting 6Ghz Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. The SSD in our test machine was a Phison unit, and it recorded good average sequential read and write speeds of 4,480MB/s and 2,376MB/s, respectively.

MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG: Specs and Performance

There are two versions of the Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG available in the UK, one based around the Intel Lunar Lake Core Ultra 7 258V CPU, the other around the Core Ultra 9 288V. Both come with Intel's Arc 140V iGPU, 32GB of integrated RAM, and a 1TB M.2 2280 SSD and run Windows 11 Pro.

What separates the Luna Lake 258V and 288V processors from the Arrow Lake, Meteor Lake, and Raptor Lake competition is the 47 (48 in the case of the 288V) TOPS NPU, which can run AI tasks locally. As Microsoft leans ever more heavily into locally run AI tasks within Windows, this lends the new MSI a useful degree of future-proofing.

The 8-core Intel Core Ultra 7 258V may seem an odd choice of processor for a desktop, given that its intended role is to provide efficient computing for laptops in the name of long battery life, something irrelevant to a desktop setup, but it performed well in our bench tests.

In ITPro's bespoke 4K multi-media benchmark, the NUC AI+ 2MG scored 301 points, which, if not on a par with the 361 scored by the Core Ultra 9 285H-powered Geekom IT15 we tested recently, is still a healthy score.

In the PCMark 10 benchmark, the NUC AI+ 2MG scored 6,857, which compares to the Geekom's 7,450 points. The MSI's score is, however, comfortably ahead of the 4,945 scored by the Ryzen 5-powered Geekmon A5 or the 6,066 scored by the Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen 4 Tiny, which runs on an Intel Core i7-13700T CPU.

When it comes to graphics performance, Intel's Arc 140V integrated GPU is capable of delivering speeds beyond the most fevered imaginings of its Iris Xe forbears. By way of proof, the NUC AI+ 2MG ran the SPECviewperf 3dsmax 3D modelling benchmark at 26fps, which, if not RTX 50-series discrete GPU-quick, is still usable for serious graphics work.

That MSI has used a CPU designed for efficient running pays dividends when the NUC AI+ 2MG is put under heavy load. After two hours of stress testing, the CPU was running at 75% utilization and with minimal fan noise

Fixed to the inside top of the NUC AI+ 2MG's frame, where you would more normally expect to find a 2.5-inch HDD bracket, is a speaker enclosure.

It's not the loudest built-in speaker, pumping out just 71dBA as measured, but against a pink noise source at 1m but it is pleasantly tuneful with a useful amount of bass and absolutely no distortion even at maximum volume.

The sound system is designed with conference calls in mind rather than listening to Brahms' violin concerto, which is what's playing as we write this review, but the experience is far from unpleasant.

Audio recorded through the dual microphone array had a slightly echoey quality to it, but the quality certainly suffices for Zoom or Teams calls.

Given the quality of the NUC AI+ 2MG's audio system and the presence of Microsoft's Windows Studio Effects webcam filters, you can get away with only adding a basic, cheap webcam and still get pretty decent quality results.

MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG: Is it worth it?

My main issue with the new MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG is the price. Just shy of £1,300 is a lot for a mini PC, albeit one with a bang-up-to-date chipset. That price applies to the 288V model, and no doubt the 258V version will be cheaper, especially when the product starts hitting UK retail channels in quantity, but we still can't see the Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG matching the price of the Chinese competition from the likes of Geekom or Acemagic.

Of course, none of the competition boasts Microsoft's Copilot+ accreditation, and that's really what sets the new MSI mini PC aside from the competition. If you make regular use of Windows 11's built-in AI tools, and we must admit to using Recall regularly in the office, then the price premium could well be worth paying.

After all, assuming you have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor already to hand, the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG is a similar price to a good Copilot+ laptop like the HP EliteBook X G1a or the MSI Prestige A16 AI+.

MSI NUC AI+ 2MG specifications