Minisforum MS-A1 Mini PC

Minisforum is a well-known brand known for its range of mini PCs. The MS-A1 is a mid-range offering that comes with an AM5 socket. It is now possible to configure the product with the powerful 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X CPU, which has a 100 W TDP.

The system originally came with a Ryzen 7 8700G, which was sufficient for most users. The MS-A1 does not have dedicated graphics, making the Ryzen 7 8700G a good choice due to its strong iGPU. However, for workloads that require high CPU power, the MS-A1 with the Ryzen 9 9950X is a great option. The Radeon 610M iGPU in the 9950X may struggle with GPU-intensive tasks due to the lack of discrete graphics.

Despite its compact size, the mini PC has a dual-fan cooling system with four heat pipes to handle the 100 W TDP of the Ryzen 9 9950X. With no dedicated GPU, thermal management should not be a major issue. The system includes four M.2 PCIe 4.0 slots, OCuLink for fast eGPU connections, dual 2.5 G RJ45 ports, DP 2.0, HDMI 2.1, and a USB 3 Type-C port (without USB4 support due to the Ryzen 9000 CPU).

As for pricing, the barebones MS-A1 costs $259, while the Ryzen 9 9950X variant starts at $919 (RAM and storage not included). The fully configured version with a Ryzen 9 9950X, 32 GB RAM, and a 2 TB SSD is priced at $1,199.