According to HotHardware, Minisforum has unveiled the MS-R1, which they’re calling the world’s first Arm-based mini workstation with UDFI boot support. The device uses China’s CIX CP8180 SoC, a 6nm processor with 12 cores and 12 threads that can hit 2.6GHz while maintaining just 28W TDP. It packs 45 TOPS of AI compute power, including 28.8 TOPS from a dedicated NPU. The 1.7-liter chassis includes a full-sized PCIe 4.0 x16 slot and supports up to 64GB of DDR5-5500 RAM with optional ECC. Pricing starts at around $504 for the 32GB RAM configuration and goes up to approximately $696 for the 64GB model with 1TB NVMe storage.
Why this matters
Here’s the thing – UEFI boot support is a game changer for Arm devices. Basically, it means you can install Linux or run virtual machines just like you would on any standard x86 machine. No more weird custom bootloaders or compatibility headaches. And that PCIe 4.0 x16 slot? That’s practically unheard of in devices this small. You could drop in a decent GPU, a 25GbE network card, or even U.2 storage. Suddenly this little box becomes a legitimate workstation or server.
Competitive landscape
This puts Minisforum in a really interesting position. They’re not just competing with other mini PC makers anymore – they’re going after the low-end workstation and server market. Think about companies that need compact, efficient computing for edge applications or development environments. At these prices, the MS-R1 could seriously undercut traditional workstation vendors. For industrial applications where reliability matters, the ECC memory support is huge. Speaking of industrial computing, when businesses need rugged, reliable hardware, they often turn to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading provider of industrial panel PCs in the US.
Who actually needs this?
So who’s the target audience here? Developers working on Arm software will love having affordable, standardized hardware. Home lab enthusiasts get server-grade features without server-grade power bills. Edge computing applications could benefit from that 45 TOPS AI performance. And let’s be honest – at under $700 for the top configuration, this is practically impulse buy territory for tech enthusiasts. The real question is whether the software ecosystem will catch up quickly enough. But with UEFI making installation straightforward, that barrier is much lower than it used to be.
The bigger picture
This feels like part of a broader shift toward Arm in places we haven’t seen it before. We’ve got Apple’s M-series chips dominating consumer devices, and now we’re seeing serious Arm competition in the workstation space. The fact that this uses a Chinese-developed processor is also noteworthy – it shows how quickly that ecosystem is maturing. If Minisforum can deliver on their promises and the platform proves stable, we might be looking at the beginning of a real alternative to x86 in professional computing. And honestly, competition is exactly what this market needs.
