New mini workstation MINISFORUM MS-R1 available, a product that surprises us with its ARM processor and its functions designed for a Linux server.
This machine is a version of the MINISFORUM MS-A2 that stands out for the inclusion of the CIX CP8180 processor, little known to the public. This hardware is very similar to that of the Radxa Orion O6 development board. A system that offers a high capacity of AI processing with up to 40 TOPS, and can also be used as a high performance server with its two 10 G Ethernet connectors. A machine designed for technicians who require a workstation with these features, the rest of desktop users will get more performance with the x86 AMD or Intel version.
The operating system for this workstation is Linux, by default it seems to have Debian 12. We can install any compatible distribution, it supports UEFI boot and system virtualization.
MINISFORUM MS-R1 Specifications
This ARM mini PC includes a CIX CP8180 processor with 12 ARMv9.2 cores and 12 threads reaching up to 2.8 GHz. For the artificial intelligence section this processor offers us a dedicated NPU that reaches 28.8 TOPS, adding the CPU we reach 45 TOPS. For the integrated graphics output we have a 10-core ARM Immortalis-G720 GPU. The total power consumption is 28 W, which gives us a very high efficiency.
In the RAM section we have 64 GB LPDDR5 ECC 5500 MHz soldered to the board. For storage we have options between 1 / 8 TB in one of its two slots M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 4.0.
Other notable features
In terms of wireless connectivity we have Wifi 6E tri-band and Bluetooth 5.3. As connectors we find an internal PCIe 4.0 x16 slot for low-profile dedicated GPUs, 3.5 mm combo audio jack, 4 10 GB network connectors, three USB-A 3.2, four USB-A 2.0, two USB-C and HDMI 2.0 video output.
The case of this mini PC has a volume of only 1.7 Books, undoubtedly a very compact computer. The dimensions are 196×189×48 mm and the weight is 1.4 kg.
Price and availability
- The MINISFORUM MS-R1 is available from MINISFORUM starting at $504 in its simplest version.
