Minisforum announced the MS-S1 MAX-P495, the first compact workstation equipped with AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495. The system sells for a whopping $7,399. Equipped with 192GB unified LPDDR5X memory and 2TB solid state drive.
Image source: Mini Forum
AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 is part of the new AMD Ryzen AI Max 400 (Gorgon Halo) series of processors and is a direct update of the Strix Halo series. One of the key innovations of the new series of processors is support for up to 192 GB of unified memory. The same Strix Halo only supports up to 128 GB of unified memory.
The cost of the compact Minisforum MS-S1 MAX-P495 workstation is interesting because HP recently announced the price of a ZBook Ultra G3a laptop equipped with the same Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 processor and the same amount of memory (192 GB). The laptop costs $7,449. As a result, the Minisforum workstation is only $50 cheaper, even though its nominal configuration includes a 2 TB SSD, whereas the HP laptop’s base configuration offers a 512 GB hard drive.
Both systems allow you to allocate up to 160 GB of unified memory to accommodate the needs of integrated Radeon graphics, which is one of the main reasons such expensive configurations exist. The Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 processor combines 16 Zen 5 cores with integrated Radeon 8065S graphics and 40 computing units (CUs) based on the RDNA 3.5 architecture. The performance of the built-in neural processor (NPU) reaches 55 TOPS, and the total performance of the entire processor reaches 131 TOPS according to Minisforum data.
The MS-S1 MAX-P495 system uses 192 GB LPDDR5X-8533 memory connected via a 256-bit interface. Minisforum claims to have a performance mode with 120W power consumption. The cooling system used is designed for a peak power of up to 160 W. It uses copper pads, six heat pipes, a phase change thermal interface, and two fans.
The workstation also features a full-length PCIe slot (operating in PCIe 4.0 x4 mode) and two M.2 connectors. Network capabilities include two 10 Gbit ports. The device also includes two USB4 V2 connectors (80 Gbps), two USB4 (40 Gbps), and an HDMI 2.1 FRL.
The MS-S1 MAX-P495 workstation is available at the US online store Minisforum. The company also has a European product page, but it currently only shows preliminary prices and not actual offers for the EU market. It should also be noted that Minisforum promotes bulk purchasing and positions the system as capable of running large AI models in clusters. In other words, this product is clearly not suitable for the average PC user.
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