MS-C931: This mini PC with 128GB RAM is a decade ahead of Intel and AMD NPUs, thanks to Nvidia

We've already reported on MSI products quite a few times, even though some devices are not necessarily designed for consumers. MSI also offers products for businesses and professionals, and the new EdgeXpert MS-C931 falls into that category. Specifically, this mini PC is being advertised as an AI supercomputer. This means that it should offer enough performance to run AI models locally, which has several advantages. For example, it can be cheaper than paying for cloud-based AI services, but it’s also safer from a privacy standpoint. This could play a role for consulting businesses that deal with sensitive customer data.

The MSI EdgeXpert measures 5.9 x 5.9 x 2 inches and can also be used in other settings including robotics. Specifically, robots could benefit from real-time image recognition when connected to the MS-C931 via a local network. The mini PC could also be used for traffic monitoring or control. The MS-C931 is powered by an Nvidia Blackwell graphics card and an ARM SoC with 20 cores. This computer supposedly has an AI performance of 1,000 TOPS, which is quite high in comparison to NPUs found in Intel and AMD CPUs, which usually have a double-digit TOPS AI performance. Moreover, this device sports 128GB LPDDR5x RAM and NVLink C2C, which means that the processor and GPU can seamlessly access the memory.

According to MSI, a single one of these mini PCs can handle an LLM with up to 200 billion parameters locally. If two MSI MS-C931 units are paired, this number doubles. In principle, the system can also be used like a traditional mini PC without any issues. It can drive up to four displays via USB Type-C, which can also be used to hook up various accessories. WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3 are onboard, while the M.2 SSD offers 1TB of storage capacity. Last but not least, the Ethernet port has a bandwidth of 10Gbit/s, and the mini PC is powered by a 240W PSU.