Minisforum has teased its upcoming Mini-ITX PC which supports 55W AMD Dragon Range & Intel Raptor Lake HX CPUs.
Minisforum Readies Mini-ITX PC Featuring High-End 55W AMD Dragon Range & Intel Raptor Lake CPUs With PCIe 5.0 dGPU Support
Announced by Minisforum through its official Weibo account, the new Mini-ITX PC, which has yet to get an official name, is based around a 6-liter chassis with a rectangular body that features a stylish color scheme featuring an aluminum frame on the sides and a wooden plate on the top. This Mini-ITX PC will feature support for an SFX power supply and also carry a PCIe 5.0 expansion slot to add a high-performance discrete GPU.
The most important specification of the Minisforum Mini-ITX PC is its CPU and motherboard config. Unlike the previous-gen Mini PCs where the maximum you were able to get was either an H or HS chip, the latest design will carry support for AMD's Dragon Range "Ryzen 7045" & Intel Raptor Lake "13th Gen" CPUs under the "HX" series. These are high-end chips featuring a 55W TDP design and feature a lot more performance than traditional mobile SKUs.
Both the AMD Dragon Range and Intel Raptor Lake 55W HX series are desktop-grade designs with the same core configurations. The AMD Ryzen offerings reach up to 16 cores and 32 threads with the upcoming Dragon Range X3D variants offering up to 128 MB of cache while Intel Raptor Lake-HX chips offer 24 cores and 32 threads with the upcoming Refresh series offering higher clocks & more core configurations to select from.
The Minisforum Mini-ITX PC is based on the same motherboards which we covered in Taipei during Computex 2023. These motherboards feature an 8-Phase power delivery with two DDR5 SO-DIMMs that allow for up to 96 GB capacities, two M.2 slots, a PCIe Gen 5.0 x16 slot and are powered by an 8-pin connector. Overall features of the Mini PC include:
- 6-Liter Chassis Design
- Intel Raptor Lake-HX & AMD Dragon Range-HX 55W CPU Support
- Up To 16 Core AMD & 24-Core Intel CPU Option
- Dual DDR5 SO-DIMM Supports
- Dual M.2 Slots
- One PCIe 5.0 x16 Slot For dGPU
- Supports SFX PSU
I/O on both motherboards should be similar with DP/HDMI outputs, several USB ports including a Type-C on the back, an Ethernet LAN port along with WIFI capabilities, and a 3-channel audio jack. There are no SATA ports and the cooling solution should be designed by Minisforum as a single-fan blow-through design that vents air out of the exhaust ports on the back of the chassis.
💣Breaking News:
👏A new ITX Mini PC is joining the MINISFORUM family.
👍Equipped with the new motherboard, features a PCIe5.0 x16 slot and discrete graphics card.
More powerful configuration and superior performance. Any ideas about it? Let 's discuss in the comments. pic.twitter.com/Yz5Q1VufKl— MINISFORUM Official (@Hi_MINISFORUM) July 25, 2023
The Mini PC manufacturer states that two configurations of motherboards will be available as mentioned above and you can expect to purchase the machine in both barebone and pre-configured variants. The motherboards will also be sold separately. The PC will definitely be a nice replacement for Intel's NUC series which has been discounted by Chipzilla.
