ASUS ExpertCenter P500 Review: The Silent Overachiever in a Suit

If you’ve been looking for a desktop without RGB lighting and water-cooled vanity, ASUS might have just the thing. The ASUS ExpertCenter P500 is a small, no-frills desktop PC for businesses and professionals who want reliable performance that’s quiet, cool and not a gimmick. This is not a showpiece. It doesn’t need to be.

Inside the ASUS ExpertCenter P500

Small, big, silent: This is a desktop for business brains, not gaming brawn

At 15 litres and 6 kg, the P500 breaks the mould of big office desktops by packing enterprise-grade hardware into a case smaller than a cereal box.

Smart chip, silent shell

The P500’s unassuming power is largely down to the internal hardware. Instead of a traditional desktop CPU, ASUS uses a mobile Intel Core i7-13620H with a balance of CPU power and thermal consumption, custom cooling hardware and fan profiles and drives the chip to 4.5 GHz and keeps it there without throttling even under extended loads.

In fact, ASUS claims this combination results in up to 34–38% lower power consumption compared to typical mini-tower systems, making the P500 significantly more energy-efficient for offices running long hours.

This means the P500 outperforms its size class in productivity and multitasking scenarios. And it was never meant to be a gaming PC. Instead, it breezes through meetings, spreadsheets, and content previews with minimal fuss.

Built like a vault, designed for work

The chassis is all matte black and business. No lights, no glass panels just tool-free access and practical design. Front has USB-C and USB 3.2 Gen 1, back has legacy connectors, DisplayPort, HDMI and Ethernet.

MIL-STD-810H certified, dual M.2 slots and upgradable SODIMM memory. Everything is modular, accessible and sensible. Inside, solid-state capacitors and low-noise cooling solutions for long-term reliability in commercial deployments.

Real-World Performance: Built for daily hustle, not demo reels

Specs are fine, but what about the real world performance when you actually sit down to use this PC for real work? We ran it through typical day-to-day professional workloads, like video calls, browser tabs, Office apps (Word, excel, PPT, etc.), Photoshop layers, and a dozen background tools. The P500 was able to handle daily multitasking, without any glitches. 

While havine video conferencing along with some productivity apps running, it stays smooth even with 15 tabs open. Exporting a 30-slide PowerPoint to PDF with high-res images takes under 10 seconds. 

Real-world usage notes:

• Heavy browser use: No stutters, even with 40 tabs and media autoplay.

• Zoom + Excel + PDF markup + chat apps: Runs cool and quiet.

• Photo editing (up to 50MP RAW): Acceptable speed on integrated graphics, better with optional GPU.

• Long uptime sessions: Zero throttling after 6–7 hours of sustained work.

This isn’t a show pony. It’s more like a quiet colleague that keeps pace and doesn’t complain.

Performance where it matters

Benchmarks confirm what you already know: this system is fast and responsive for office tasks, collaborative work and light content creation also while working office tasks you might end up opening multiple tabs 

Productivity Scores (PCMark 10):

• Essentials: 10,996

• Productivity: 7,444

• Digital Content Creation: 7,635

Geekbench 6:

• Single-Core: 2,538

• Multi-Core: 11,577

The mobile CPU stays cool and consistent, perfect for environments where uptime, silence and efficiency matter more than synthetic bragging rights.

Integrated graphics with a surprise

The Intel UHD Graphics isn’t gaming grade but gets the job done for AutoCAD previews, video calls and browser-based tools.

Graphics Benchmarks:

• Time Spy Extreme: 675

• VRS Feature Test: 141.92 FPS (On) vs 88.20 FPS (Off) — 60.9% performance boost

Optional discrete GPU upgrades (RTX A400, RTX 3050) available if you need more graphics for CAD or rendering.

AI that actually helps

The P500’s AI tools don’t just exist for buzzword compliance. They help with real-world hybrid workflows.

AI Features:

• Transcription with AI Meeting Minutes

• Live language translation with Subtitles

• AI-based background noise cancellation

AI Benchmark:

• 3DMark Inference Score: 1,231

No dedicated NPU but runs AI-assisted productivity tasks just fine.

Fast storage, no bottlenecks

ASUS includes a WD SN5000 NVMe SSD, loads software, boots Windows and moves large files with ease.

Key Storage Metrics:

• Average Bandwidth: 472.03 MB/s

• Game Speed: 2,466.25 MB/s

• Load Time (Battlefield V): 1,013.49 MB/s

Dual M.2 Gen 4 and SATA bay, future expansion is easy.

Brickproof BIOS: Made to withstand the unexpected

Security is more than a checkbox on the P500; it’s built into the boot process. The system has BIOS rollback capabilities using cryptographic hashes according to NIST SP 800-155. If use is detected, it will roll back to a known-good BIOS in a secured area.

The root-of-trust is using hardware anchors such as TPM and Intel PTT which creates a very high barrier for a firmware attack but P500 is not invincible. There are bootkits such as BlackLotus that can bypass all of this if Secure Boot is not configured properly.

Designed to perform, not impress

Those who choose the ASUS Expert Center P500 over a typical consumer desktop value performance, reliability and discretion over flashiness, form and shine. It’s small, quiet and powerful enough for an office in 2025. The P500 is not flashy by any means but its speed consistency, AI capability and resiliency makes it a safe choice for professionals and IT administrators alike.

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