MINIS FORUM has listed their AR900i motherboard up for order for $559. The board is a standard ITX sized unit but designed around a mobile Intel i9 – 13900HX. It includes a built-in CPU heatsink that can exhaust hot air out the rear I/O panel of the motherboard, and a custom fan and heatsink for the four m.2 drive slots. Most importantly, it also supports a PCIe 5.0 x 16 slot for use of desktop GPUs. RAM is DDR5 SODIMMs at up to 5200 MT/s.
Check out the product page by CLICKING HERE.
 


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Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
Original poster
Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
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FYI: The specs on the product page - of the German site, that is - say that RAM support is up to 5600 MT/s, not 5200.

cu, w0lf.

Interesting. I wonder which is correct.


 

hrh_ginsterbusch

Master of Cramming
Nov 18, 2021
441
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wp-devil.com
Interesting. I wonder which is correct.


We can only find out after ordering and trying, I guess :D

Well, I am tempted - I did a quick comparison, and the 13900HX is similar in performance to the 13900T. So you get a mainboard + CPU + cooling solution (you still have to add a fan, but just drop a T30 or Noctua on this and be happy) for about 2/3rd to half the price you'd have to invest, plus .. finding an ITX 1700 mainboard with FOUR m2 sockets is gonna be even more of a set-back, if they even exist (so far I've only seen boards with 3 m2 sockets at max). The 13900T is also not so easy to come by, at least when I checked a few days ago.

cu, w0lf.
 

DASBOOT

Airflow Optimizer
Dec 31, 2017
253
217
My shipment of the pre-order is now on its way as of today.
Your order is on the way. Track your shipment to see the delivery status. DHL Express tracking number:
Please note Minisforum creates the label at the beginning of the shipping process to trigger customs activity. That's why you see the shipping status stuck in "Shipping label has been created" or "Shipment information received" status.
It will update once the customs are completed in 4-6 business days. You will receive your parcel in the next 2-3 weeks (including 1 week lead time for the flight arrangement due to the holiday season).

Items in this shipment​



MINISFORUM AR900i × 1
Intel Core i9 13900HX / 170mm x 170mm x 1.6mm
 

rcodi

SFF Gamer
Aug 5, 2017
176
165
Hoping to hear some reports of temps and noise with these new boards, I've been on the fence on it especially with the holiday sale.
 

thanuxman

Case Bender
New User
Dec 26, 2023
2
3
I canceled my order to pre-order the MS-01 but i'll may give this one a try later this year.

If we can have some reports and metrics from this beast it could be useful to help us make a choice.

Thanks to everyone who can provide some specific inputs.

Happy new year.
 
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hrh_ginsterbusch

Master of Cramming
Nov 18, 2021
441
169
wp-devil.com
After watching the review / build by ETA Prime, I gotta say: One could build it with a 4060 Ti dual-slot (eg. StormX or one of its clones) and use either a HD Plex GaN 500 or the recently announced 450W modular Flex PSU via Overtek, and would still be able to have a total blast .. 😍 🥳

cu, w0lf.
 
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fudgesticks

What's an ITX?
New User
Jan 7, 2023
1
0
ill stick to the engineering sample boards for the 13900h ( 13900HK (ES) Q1HY)

its even overclokable!

lets me keep my ddr4 and cost litterally 1/3 the price of the ar900i.
 

b_force

Average Stuffer
May 28, 2019
72
25
I did a quick comparison, and the 13900HX is similar in performance to the 13900T.
A bit offtopic, but what's people's experience with those T variants in general?

I have been thinking of a very efficient build mostly just for emulation.
(Mostly in sense of heat)
Ideally up to emulating with yuzu, so switch games.

It's only very hard to find any tests or otherwise interpolate results from other parts.

I am also curious if a regular non-T variant will perform the same when tdp is just limited in the bios?
 

alucard_ua

Minimal Tinkerer
New User
Jan 26, 2024
3
1
Amazing performance! And headroom it provides over the LP GPUs is leaving upgradability issue completely asides.

I wonder if it would fit Velka3 with decent fan like a L9i or AXP90 X36 cause it's mopping floors with my original choice of 13400 🤯
 
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Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
Original poster
Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
1,674
2,708


LOL.

So just an update: The specs I'll be running for this build will be:

  • CCD MI6 Case with 120mm Top Fan Attic (Noctua A12)
  • 600 Watt Corsair PSU
  • MSI Aero ITX 3060Ti. I did also consider a 4060Ti 16GB but my workflow didn't benefit to be worth it.
  • 2x48GB (96GB total) DDR5-5600 ...if it works.
  • 2TB Samsung 990 Pro
  • 2TB Samsung 970 Evo
  • 1TB Samsung 980 Pro (may or may not be included)
  • I'm not quite sure what cooling fan I'll be using for the CPU. Zotac doesn't list the height of the cooler itself and I have 70mm to work with. I'm hoping to be able to use a 120x25 or even 120x30 fan.

Prior to the case build I'll be open benching the Minisforum with whatever the fastest GPU I have on hand is. Probably the 4070 Super since I also have 5600X benchmarks with them in addition to our 12900K test bench.

Puget Systems and UL have both very generously donated a license for their creative benchmarks to SFFN, and I plan to use them as this is a creators build, and add them to future benchmarks.

Once the system is complete, and time permitting, I'll compare it to a few other sytems on hand:

  • 5950X with 240mm AIO and 128GB of RAM and 4070 Super in Sliger Cerberus X
  • 13900K with 280mm AIO and 64GB of RAM and 3080 10GB in Slate Case
  • 5600X with L9A and 32GB of RAM with RTX 4060 Solo in Densium 4
  • Maybe something offball like my old Zotac EN1070 6700T with 1070 Laptop system.
 

rfarmer

Spatial Philosopher
Jul 7, 2017
2,603
2,718
LOL.

So just an update: The specs I'll be running for this build will be:

  • CCD MI6 Case with 120mm Top Fan Attic (Noctua A12)
  • 600 Watt Corsair PSU
  • MSI Aero ITX 3060Ti. I did also consider a 4060Ti 16GB but my workflow didn't benefit to be worth it.
  • 2x48GB (96GB total) DDR5-5600 ...if it works.
  • 2TB Samsung 990 Pro
  • 2TB Samsung 970 Evo
  • 1TB Samsung 980 Pro (may or may not be included)
  • I'm not quite sure what cooling fan I'll be using for the CPU. Zotac doesn't list the height of the cooler itself and I have 70mm to work with. I'm hoping to be able to use a 120x25 or even 120x30 fan.

Prior to the case build I'll be open benching the Minisforum with whatever the fastest GPU I have on hand is. Probably the 4070 Super since I also have 5600X benchmarks with them in addition to our 12900K test bench.

Puget Systems and UL have both very generously donated a license for their creative benchmarks to SFFN, and I plan to use them as this is a creators build, and add them to future benchmarks.

Once the system is complete, and time permitting, I'll compare it to a few other sytems on hand:

  • 5950X with 240mm AIO and 128GB of RAM and 4070 Super in Sliger Cerberus X
  • 13900K with 280mm AIO and 64GB of RAM and 3080 10GB in Slate Case
  • 5600X with L9A and 32GB of RAM with RTX 4060 Solo in Densium 4
  • Maybe something offball like my old Zotac EN1070 6700T with 1070 Laptop system.
Looking forward to your tests, nice to see your MI-6 still in use.
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
Original poster
Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
1,674
2,708
Looking forward to your tests, nice to see your MI-6 still in use.

It's getting tougher with the larger sizes and power consumption of GPUs and high heat of CPUs, but it's still viable for this gen. I wish we could get a readily available 4070 ITX sized GPU here.

Unfortunately, I think this might be the MI6's swan song unless we see a major change in the power and heat direction of the industry.
 
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Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
Original poster
Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
1,674
2,708
Ok...After digging through MinisForum's website I found the manual and official spec page. The stock CPU cooler height with the fan is 37mm. This will allow me to put a 120x30mm fan on it in my case. It also means that it would work well with the Ghost S1. Looks like some of those older cases just got new leases on life with this board and CPU combo if it turns out to reliably perform.