MNT Station mini PC goes live, features up to 32 GB RAM and open-source upgradeable hardware

Open source enthusiasts who have followed MNT since its inception in 2019 will be pleased to note that the company is now offering the MNT Station - a mini PC that is based on the MNT Reform board. In fact, customers who already own a Reform board can simply use the station's enclosure to swap in their existing board. 

To be precise, it can be stated that the MNT Station is indeed just an enclosure for the company's mainboards. The enclosure is fully CNC milled from anodized aluminum, which should give it a premium feel. The product measures in at around 28 by 13.3 by 2.6 cm, or roughly 11 by 5 by 1 in. 

The MNT Reform Mainboard 3.0 features a 200-pin processor module, which essentially allows its customers to slap on any compatible SoC module. For instance, customers can choose a CM4 module, a Rockchip RK3588 V2-powered module with up to 32 GB of RAM, or even an NXP LS1028A module with 16 GB of RAM.

The Raspberry Pi CM4 (curr. $150 on Amazon, with heatsink) is already quite well known, and hardly needs an introduction. Here is a refresher for those who are not aware of the Rockchip and NXP modules - the RK3588 SoC sports an eight-core setup consisting of 4 Cortex A76 and 4 Cortex A55 CPU cores, along with a Mali-G610 MP4 GPU.

The NXP LS1028A, on the other hand, is also a compute module featuring dual Cortex A72 cores and a Vivante G7000UL GPU paired with 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. 

The MNT Station will also offer up to 256 GB of eMMC storage. A single mini PCIe slot is also present, along with an M.2 slot for NVMe SSDs. The rest of the I/O is as follows:

• Triple USB 3.0 Type-A, USB Type-C with power delivery
• HDMI
• 1G Ethernet
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• SD card

Being open-source at heart, the MNT Station, powered by the MNT Reform Mainboard, offers a ton of customizability and developer-focused features. Rather unsurprisingly, folks with older variations of the MNT Reform Mainboard (2.0 and 2.5) can also take advantage of the MNT Station enclosure.

The crowdfunding project for the MNT Station is already underway, with the project having raised almost $9,100. The funding round ends on the 25th of September. 

As for pricing, the MNT Station enclosure is priced at $299, and comes in black, silver, and petrol (blue-ish) colored variants. The MNT Reform Mainboard 3.0 is priced at $429, which does not feature a CPU.

The MNT RK3588 V2 module costs a whopping $899 for the 16 GB RAM variant. The LS1028A module, also with 16 GB RAM, is more affordable at $675. Lastly, a Raspberry Pi CM4 module with 8 GB of RAM is priced at only $160.