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MINISFORUM Announces Core i5 Variant of the MS-01 Desktop

btarunr

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The Minisforum MS-01 is a mini workstation with a sleek and portable design, rich ports and strong expansion capabilities. It has four M.2 slots and PCIE×16 slots inside, which can be used to install half-height graphics cards. Optional Intel 13th generation Core i9-13900H and other processors offering high cost performance.The efficient cooling design ensures optimal performance, meeting the needs of professional users in fields such as engineering, design, and programming.

At this year's product launch event, Minisforum showcased the MS-01 i9-12900H version, i9-13900H version, positioned as a mini workstation. As a potential competitor to the known brands, this new model impressed me with its dual 10-gigabit network ports and unparalleled expansion capabilities. Now the Minisforum MS-01 i5 version has finally been officially launched, provides users who have been struggling with the high prices of top brand mini workstations that are always lacking in expansion capabilities with a relatively affordable option.



As a mini workstation, Minisforum MS-01 adopts a more commercial design with a black metal body and a grille twill decorative front panel. The host size is 196 mm x 189 mm x 48 mm (excluding the foot pad), approximately 1.78L, and can be placed upright or lying down, making it suitable for any location.

The Minisforum MS-01 features two 10GbE ports, two 2.5GbE ports, two full-speed 40 Gbps USB4 ports which are compatible with 20G Thunderbolt Ethernet, two USB-A3.2 Gen 2 ports, HDMI 2.0, and a power jack on the front panel. When these three features are combined, they can achieve a network transmission speed of 65 Gbps!

The internal design of the Minisforum MS-01 is even more impressive. It has four M.2 slots, one of which is used to install a wireless network card, and the other three are SSD. Ordinary consumers can install three 2280 SSDs at the same time. Enterprise users can install one U.2 SSD and two 22110 SSDs at the same time. Such powerful expansion capabilities are extremely rare in mobile workstations with more than 4L.

Another core competitiveness of Minisforum MS-01 is that there is a PCIE×16 slot inside, which can be used to install a half-height graphics card, such as the RTX 3050 consumer-grade discrete graphics card or the RTX A2000 DIY customer cooler that has passed ISV certification. Of course, you can also use it to transfer more hard disk positions and build an NVME all-flash server. It should be noted that the power adapter provided with Minisforum MS-01 has a power of 180 W. After installing a discrete graphics card, users may need to replace it with a higher power adapter.

On core configuration, Minisforum MS-01 can choose Intel 13th generation Core i9-13900H, or 12th generation i9-12900H and i5-12600H. For those who focus on performance, choose i9-13900H. This chip has 6 large, 8 small, 14 cores and 20 threads, with a maximum turbo frequency of 5.40 GHz and integrated with Radeon Xe 96 core graphics. It has strong productivity. For those who want to build a full flash server, choosing i5-12600H processor is also enough, which can significantly reduce the installation cost.

In general, Minisforum MS-01 is a mini workstation with ultra-fast internet speed, super storage, and extraordinary expansion capabilities. It has all the configurations and functions you can think of, and its specifications are higher than competing products. Minisforum's mini-hosts are known for their high quality, and the fourth anniversary celebration discount price of the high-end version of Minisforum MS-01 (32 GB RAM+1 TB SSD) is only $679 for the i9-12900H version, $839 for the 13900H version, and $589 for the i5-12600H version. It is cheaper than the low-end and mid-range versions of known brands mini-workstations, its cost-effectiveness should be another core competitiveness.

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They also have launched AMD AM5 based mini PC of similar form factor but it lacks SFP and PCI-e slot so in a way atleast that PC has user upgradable CPU with 4x M.2 slots but it lacks connectivity and PCIe slot found on Intel version.
 
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the fourth anniversary celebration discount price of the high-end version of Minisforum MS-01 (32 GB RAM+1 TB SSD) is only $679 for the i9-12900H version
Don't worry about trying to get one of these, cause I just had my AI-bot buyer thingy buy them all, everywhere, all at once, heeheehee :D /s

But seriously, if I needed a new mini-me box, I'd be all over these for sure :D
 
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Their products are very interesting, and I own some of their stuff, but support and warranty are a big problem. If anything happens, support will reply quickly, which is usually helpful, but if it's a hardware issue, you have to send it on your own to Hong Kong. Even if you buy it from Amazon, everything is passed on to Minisforum support. Some products have design flaws without any chance of updates/fixes. Motherboards have problems with the BIOS, and there is only an initial release on the website. RAM support is "good luck," and I know that one of the motherboards was prepared for release using literally 1 memory kit (info from their support when I asked for QVL). This is funny, but I tested more memory kits on their motherboards than Minisforums. The initial training makes them start for 5+ minutes (higher RAM capacity = longer). You may think they're DOA.

Either way, one motherboard that I have runs 24/7 since February. One was a pain to make work at first, but there have been no problems since about January. One mini PC had to be put into pieces and put together again, as the internal connector was causing it to shut down. Now it works fine.

If you buy anything from them, then you have to consider all the pros and cons and decide if it's worth it.
 
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They also have launched AMD AM5 based mini PC of similar form factor but it lacks SFP and PCI-e slot so in a way atleast that PC has user upgradable CPU with 4x M.2 slots but it lacks connectivity and PCIe slot found on Intel version.

I saw it too. i would that both of them has their pros and cons while compared to each other

We actually both 2 of the intel based ones since we fully used those SFP connections, we are using them as additional proxy hardware for backups so needed as fast transfer as possible.
We used the PCIE expansion slot for additional drive.

the AM5 one in my opinion went really nice with removing SFP for additional USB ports, but cooling full desktop SKU on it does not look promising - it is just "smol"
having no PCIe expansion slot could be maybe view like a huge minus... but on other hand if you go with AM5 G series APUs you would not really put any GPU there, yet you still have alot of M2 expansions slots.

for AMD i would love to see version with mobile SKU instead of full desktop socket (at least for that form factor)

for Intel one, i would love to see one based with new Intel Ultra.

Tested both Intel Xe (Alchemist) APU on Ultra U (4CU) and UItra H (8CU) and having chips like that in a cooler from this form factor instead of a thin laptop... could be a nice thing
 
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