Beastly mini PC with up to 192 GB RAM and 16-core AMD CPU to arrive later this month

Minisforum has announced that an updated variant of its MS-S1 mini PC will be hitting shelves soon, having already been revealed at IFA 2026.

Folks who keep up with the mini PC scene will be aware that the current MS-S1 mini PC is powered by AMD's Strix Halo APU. Specifically, the S1 features the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU with 16 full-fledged Zen 5 cores and a powerful Radeon 8060S iGPU. A maximum of 128 GB of RAM can be equipped.

The updated MS-S1 mini PC will be powered by the Strix Halo APU's successor, the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 "Gorgon Halo" APU. Differences between the two are minimal, with the updated Gorgon Halo chip featuring 100 MHz higher boost and base clocks, as well as faster memory speeds. 

As a result, improvements in CPU performance are expected to be very modest, around 5% or so according to leaked Passmark benchmarks.

However, the new Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 APU will be able to support a whopping 192 GB of LPDDR5X-8533 MT/s RAM, which will allow customer to run even larger LLMs locally. 

The Radeon 8065S iGPU is a slightly improved variant of the 8060S found in the Strix Halo APU, which should continue featuring real-world performance that is in the same league as an RTX 4070 Laptop GPU.

Cooling will play a major factor in real-world sustained performance. Minisforum claims a "top-tier thermal solution" for the MS-S1, featuring six heat pipes, dual fans, and a peak 160 W dissipation capability. 

Professionals who desire PCIe expansion will be pleased to note that the MS-S1 Max-P495 mini PC will also have a full-length x16 slot available for expansion (at PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds). Storage is handled by dual M.2 slots (PCIe 4 x4, x1). The rest of the IO has been detailed below:

• Dual USB4 (40 Gbps), dual USB4 V2 (80 Gbps)
• Triple USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, dual USB 2.0 Type-A
• Dual 10G Ethernet
• 3.5 mm audio combo jack
• HDMI 2.1
• Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4

Needless to say, pricing and exact launch details are under wraps for now. The rest of the MS-S1 mini PC, especially its overall design language, is expected to be the same as the current generation MS-S1 (currently $2,599 on Amazon). 

Given just how expensive RAM and storage have been of late, the updated MS-S1 mini PC is expected to be even pricier than its current-gen sibling. Minisforum has teased a four-digit price tag starting with 7, which indicates that it might be somewhere in the range of $7,000.