Minisforum makes a lot of mini PCs, but its latest addition to the lineup is a bit different from the company's norm. The Minisforum MS-A1 is less so a mini PC and more of a very compact PC, if that makes sense. It comes with a proper socketed desktop, which you can replace if you're so inclined, as well as upgradeable RAM and storage.

It's a compact computer that can do a lot of things. It's a great productivity machine, but it can also handle some light gaming thanks to its relatively powerful integrated GPU. Plus, with a good range of ports, there's not a lot to complain about here.

About this review: Minisforum sent us the MS-A1 for the purposes of this review. The company had no input in its contents.

Minisforum MS-A1 Pricing and availability

The Minisforum MS-A1 was launched on July 23, 2024, after a brief pre-sale period. It's available straight from Minisforum, though some of the company's products have shown up on Amazon in the past, so this might end up there too.

Pricing officially starts at $309 for the barebones version, without an OS, CPU, RAM, or storage, though this model is currently discounted to $259. If you get the fully equipped model like I did, that costs $909, and includes an AMD Ryzen 7 8700G, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and Windows 11 Pro. That model is also currently discounted to $729.

What I like

It's a great all-purpose machine

One of the things I like about the Minisforum MS-A1 is that it comes with an AMD Ryzen 7 8700G, which is a very good all-rounder as far as processors go. The CPU itself is more than fast enough for all kinds of day-to-day tasks, including some image editing, but the fact that we also have AMD's RDNA 3 GPU cores means it also has very solid GPU performance. For example, editing photos in Lightroom, this PC took about 45 seconds to apply the AI denoise filter on a 24MP RAW photo, and I tried doing this to 7 pictures in a row with no significant variance.

But of course, it can also be used for gaming, It won't run the latest AAA games at Ultra settings, but if you want to be able to play most games and you don't need the fanciest graphics, this works toally fine. I tried playing Apex Legends in medium to high settings and Quad HD resolution, and it ran at a very stable 60FPS aside from the initial drop (it was around 40FPS while I was in the air looking down at the world). Bioshock Remastered (an admittedly old game) ran at max settings at a framerate usually ranging from 100FPS to 140FPS.

Gaming isn't the main focus here, but you can definitely get by with it if it's just an occasional hobby. I did run the usual benchmarks, too, with the results below:

Oddly enough, the Minisforum MS-A1 fell a little short of the AtomMan X7 Ti, which has a mobile processor. That hasn't been reflective of my experience, though, since Adobe Lightroom ran the AI Denoise filter much faster on this machine, and that's a heavy GPU-bound task. Similarly, gaming was much smoother on this machine compared to the X7 Ti. Of course, it's still nowhere near what you get with a dedicated CPU and GPU like the AtomMan G7 Pt.

Plenty of ports and room for expansion

If you do find that the performance isn't enough for you, you have options. Since this PC uses a socketed desktop processor, you can swap it for another AM5-compatible CPU, including the Ryzen 9000 series after a BIOS update. And because the computer has an OCuLink port (on top of USB4), you can also plug in an external GPU and use that high bandwidth to get much more gaming performance. Plus, both the RAM and storage are also upgradeable, with two SODIMM slots and four M.2 slots giving you a lot of room for more. You can get up to 16TB of storage across the four SSD slots.

In fact, connectivity is pretty great for this relatively small chassis. On top of those two ports, you have HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.0, and five USB Type-A ports, three with 10Gbps speeds and two with USB 2.0 speeds. There are also two 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports to handle some serious networking needs, so connectivity overall is pretty great here. The absence of an SD card reader feels a bit odd, though.

What I don't like

It's still a bit large

Using a desktop processor and having this much room for expansion is obviously going to require a bit of space, so the Minisforum MS-A1 is much bigger than a typical mini PC. Like I said at the top, it's just a compact PC now, and that's not really something I care for. Of course, this kind of PC does fit many people's needs, but if you want a low-power, small computer for your desk, you can do better with Minisforum's other computers, including the AtomMan X7 Ti.

You're going to be limited

At the same time, this small size means you're still limited in terms of upgrades. While you can get a new CPU, the external 240W PSU isn't going to handle anything too crazy, and Minisforum says you can only use CPUs up to 100W, so you can't put a Ryzen 9 9950X here and expect it to work to its full potential. Likewise, you can only use external GPUs, which means you're always going to be faced with limited bandwidth, which hinders performance.

This is neither a proper desktop nor a true mini PC, and it lives somewhere in the middle. That comes with good and bad.

Should you buy the Minisforum MS-A1?

Like any other product, whether you should get the Minisforum MS-A1 is highly dependent on the kind of user you are. This is a machine that has great all-around performance, including the ability to play some games, and it's connectivity and netowrking capabilities make it compelling for some business scenarios. Plus, having some room for upgrades can help depending on what you expect from it.

You just can't expect this to be a full desktop replacement, nor can you assume it's a real mini PC. You're still gonna have limitations with upgrades, while also having a much larger chassis than with a proper mini PC. For me, that's not a worthy tradeoff, but it's all about the use case.