Asus announced a new PC running Google's Chrome OS, but it's not another Chromebook. The Asus's new Chromebox is an Apple Mac Mini-looking box running Google Chrome OS.

The Asus Chromebox is yet another assault by Google on the cheap Windows PC market, this time aimed at desktop PCs. The low-end box sports Intel Haswell architecture with a base price of $179 (compare that to Samsung's $329 starting price for its Chromebox) and three different variants to choose from, although only two of them are coming to the U.S.

With a footprint of only 4.88-inches square and 1.65 inches thick, the Asus Chromebox could work on the desktop or next to the HDTV as a media device. Asus even has a mount so that you can clip the system behind some HDTVs and monitors. In addition, the second-tier Asus Chromebox supports 4K video out, luring big-screen, high-resolution PC enthusiasts a tantalizingly cheap Chrome OS entry to try out.

"The Asus Chromebox offers the simplicity, security, and speed of Chrome OS in the most compact and powerful Chrome device to date," said Felix Lin, director of product management at Google, according to PCMag. "Perfect for home, the classroom or the office, Chromebox is designed for the way we use computers today."

Specs

The Asus Chromebox, like nearly all Chrome OS machines, has relatively pared down specs, but the efficient, small footprint Chrome OS is designed to use less and deliver more anyway.

The CPU comes in three flavors. For U.S. customers, you'll get an Intel Haswell Celeron 2955U at 1.4 GHz with 2MB L3 for the base price. A more expensive variant will feature an Intel Core i3 chip running at 1.7GHz with 3MB L3 cache, and another Chromebox (not available in North America, at least initially) will run an Intel Core i7 processor. All variants feature an Intel HD GPU.

For RAM, there's only 2GB or 4GB configurations, but remember, Chrome OS isn't generally as much of a hardware hog as Windows operating systems. Also on the low end, the Asus Chromebox comes with 16GB of memory on a solid state drive, but Chrome OS offloads much of a PC's traditional storage needs to the cloud, and users will get 100GB of Google Drive for free for two years.

Other hardware on the new Asus Chromebox includes dual-band WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0, along with an Ethernet port. As far as ports go, the Chromebox is much more capable than many Chromebooks, with four USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI output, 1 DisplayPort, and an SD card reader, along with an audio jack. The final little bonus for this machine is that it's fan-less -- so it won't distract you while you watch 4K video on your display or TV.

Release Date

The Asus Chromebox will start at $179 with a release date in March, 2013. The Core i3 Chromebox isn't priced yet, but it will reportedly be announced closer to the release date.