Minisforum has added a new product to its growing arsenal of mini PCs, this one being a followup to an existing design but a much needed and welcomed followup. When the original B550 released, it looked like a normal mini PC but with a socketed design, meaning you could easily upgrade to a newer CPU. Since AM4 socket hasn’t seen any APU’s release since the 5700G, this wasn’t particularly useful on the surface. The B550 had a hidden secret however, which was an external PCIe 3.0 x16 connector as well as ATX PSU connectors, allowing it to be a modular component in a larger PC – not too dissimilar to the Intel NUC Extreme. The downside is everything was held in by brackets and was rather exposed. The B550 Pro rectifies this by adding a case around it all.
In addition to the case, the B550 Pro brings some other upgrades as well. Instead of only 4 USB 3.2 Type A ports, it now gets 6, plus a USB 2.0 Type A. The solo Type C with DP/data remains. Minisforum recommends up to a 5800X3D CPU but does not recommend higher power SKUs such as the 5900x or 5950x. Additionally it has support for a PCIe 4.0 M.2 drive as well as a separate 3.0 M.2 drive.
It will be offered as a barebones kit or bundled with a Silverstone SFX 650W power supply. Currently it is already available from Chinese retailer JD.com for ￥1799 barebones (260 USD) or ￥2399 with PSU (348 USD). It should hit other markets very soon.
Interestingly, it appears the case is a 3 slot design but it only supports dual slot cards for the x16 slot, as it’s using a bifurcated design with a single slot x4 slot adjacent.
