MINISFORUMMS-01 Mini PC Barebone with Intel Core i9-12900H,vPro Enterprise Support,2x10Gbps SFP+LAN/2x2.5G RJ45/2xUSB4/HDMI/16xPCIe 4.0/M.2 NVMe SSD/U.2 NVMe SSD,Mini Computer(No OS/RAM/SSD)

I am a Mac person through and through but have a few workloads that don’t work well in Parallels, so I started looking for a minimalistic approach that didn’t require me to buy an expensive laptop or bulky desktop. I found great articles about the Minisforum MS-01 and was impressed with its upgradable design, size, and performance characteristics. I bought the largest model and got a 4Tb NMVe SSD and a Yeston RTX 3050 low-profile GPU as upgrades.The PC was super easy to set up. I first cloned the 1Tb SSD to the 4Tb SSD and installed it without any problem by removing just 3 screws. The video card was even easier to install as it required a single screw to be removed. I connected the PC to my 10Gbps network using an SFP+ fiber adapter and was off to the races. The boot time was super fast and after a few obligatory Windows installation steps, I was up and running, connected to the internet, and had a great 4K image. I was glad to see it came with a Windows 11 Pro license and absolutely zero apps; just the necessary drivers.The forums mentioned that upgrading the BIOS was important and that was easy too, although that entire process was much better explained on the forums than in the Minisforum documentation. It took just 5 minutes in the end and allowed me to see a lot of interesting features in the BIOS as well.Now that I’ve run the system for a week, I’m so impressed. It’s unbelievable how powerful this minuscule PC is and how easy it was to expand. It’s not as quiet as my Mac Studio Pro, but it’s totally fine from a noise perspective.I highly recommend the Minisforum MS-01.

Have had it for a week and very happy with performance so far.Note that the system doesn't have a lot of USB ports. I need to buy a USB expander.

Terrible heat management. Runs 95C on the most basic tasks. Great performance but runs too hot to be comfortable using.I applied new thermal paste but it did not fix the high temps.Unfortunately there is nothing you can do to make it run cooler. I applied the best thermal pastes.It cannot be relied on as a server with high load.

I bought three of these for a "small" Proxmox cluster and sadly, one of them came with a mangled socket on account of its own protector coming loose while in transit and hitting the pins. I asked for a refund and proceeded to buy a new unit.However, the new unit had a different cooler on the back, there was no heatsink for the main NVMe and instead it came with a cooler for the VRM, which IMO is not as useful as the previous one. Also, the new unit did not come with the U.2 adapter, which is just unacceptable.All in all, these perform quite well, they come with 2 PCIEx4 NVMe slots (at least per the manual), allowing me to create a 6-drive Ceph cluster. They do support 96GB of RAM, but could not find the option inside the BIOS to make it run at 5600Mts, as advertised; I'm limited to 5200Mts.

rare setup. very attractive.Pros:* cpu socket* removeable wifi/bluetooth chip* runs old win10 and many *nix os* amazing connectivity port options* bios reset button is hidden for basic security* bios battery wires have a connector to disconnect current to hard reset bios* extreme mobility* barebones option* priceCons:* bios lacks maturity* bios lacks features* bios will not properly reboot after conflicting option changes, meaning you need to take the front flash cover off to access the bios reset button* bios battery appears to be hard to replace as it has some plastic shrink wrap around it. wires might be soldered. idk.* minisforum website drivers appear to only work for win11. there are win10 amd drivers for cpu igpu that work on old win10* heat sink sucks. 9600x idles around 78 celsius with indium foil, even at 30 watt limited ppd, 7950x3D idles around 90 celsius with a low quality thermal pad from amazon. i aim to customize mine for the new ice giant 360 cooler coming june 2025. however, amd software reports the gpu side of the 9600x to idle at 58 celsius. i ran furmark 2 and Prime95 stress tests for 20 minutes each. igpu max temp 78-80 celcius, cpu max temp 91-92 avg 90 celsius. i think since the igpu reads lower temps on the same die as cpu heat sensor that cpu temp might be a core temp. however amd did say the 9950x3D would have a revised layout so some heat generating parts wont overheat the chip by placing them closest to the surface of the chip... so who knows this heat issue could partly be the combined fault of amd, the bios, and the cooler. custom solution required or dont buy.* many linux distros dont have compatible firmware for network card or graphics, etc. some do though. including older versions of distros oddly.* as ive read online updating the bios is a chore and not for averagw users who have never touched a command lineoverall, for what it is, i highly value this unique product. it is for niche users, but i own 2.. one from amazon and one ordered from minisforum website.5 Stars given, but i would deduct 1 for bios and drivers, especially linux drivers and old win10 driver availability. the heat issue deserves 1 star deduction but since i will customize i will allow a pass.

Perfect, very versatile and silent mini PC. I absolutely love the PCIe Slot, which gave me the option to add a two port 25 GBit network card. Runs rock solid as a Firewall with Opnsense.