Minisforum MS-01 Review The 10GbE with PCIe Slot Mini PC

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DaveLTX

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Wondering about thoughts on the 13900 vs 12900?

From what I can see, the notable differences are slightly higher cpu/gpu frequencies, increased L2 cache, higher DRAM frequencies and PCIe 5.0 vs 4.0?

So faster, but not massively, and certainly not matching the 22% increase in cost. Anything I'm missing in my comparison?
that's the desktop CPUs, the 12900H and 13900H are the SAME silicon. Just different binning.
Both are Alder Lake based, no extra L2 cache. 5.0 on both are only x8 with 2 or so x4
all other lanes are 3.0
1712500683928.png
 
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oharag

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So I sent a "where the heck is my MS-01 shipping notice" to MF. I got a response back a week later. Here's what I got back:

"
Hello there,

It's great to hear from you and I hope you're doing well today! I will be happy to assist you!

We apologize for the wait. Regarding the item you ordered, we apologize that it is currently out of stock.

We would like to inform you that the latest shipment is expected to arrive at our warehouse around the end of May.

As soon as they arrive, we will arrange for them to be shipped. In the meantime, if you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to contact us.

We take your needs very seriously and will do our best to ensure that you receive the products you need as soon as possible.

Thank you again for your understanding and support. We look forward to solving your problem as soon as possible and providing you with satisfactory service. Have a nice day!

Thanks & Regards
The MINISFORUM TEAM"

So I understand I ordered a bit late (mid March) but I guess they have been overwhelmed. So great - but 2-2.5 months to ship a product - man that sucks. I understand MF isn't HP or Apple - but they clearly missed the demand for tis product.

Here't to hoping that they correct some of the issues posted in this forum with new batches of MS-01. I'll keep reading this post to learn from the STH Team :)
 

oharag

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Feb 18, 2024
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that's the desktop CPUs, the 12900H and 13900H are the SAME silicon. Just different binning.
Both are Alder Lake based, no extra L2 cache. 5.0 on both are only x8 with 2 or so x4
all other lanes are 3.0
I bought the 13900H for the reasons above. From this website the 13900 is slightly faster than 12900 - so a bonus:



 

DaveLTX

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I bought the 13900H for the reasons above. From this website the 13900 is slightly faster than 12900 - so a bonus:



13900H is NOT like Raptor Lake-S, its only "overclocked" relative to 12900H
 

knewt

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Feb 27, 2024
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that's the desktop CPUs, the 12900H and 13900H are the SAME silicon. Just different binning.
Both are Alder Lake based, no extra L2 cache. 5.0 on both are only x8 with 2 or so x4
all other lanes are 3.0
Hmm, interesting. The comparison sites I looked at were specifically listing the H laptop variants, and had the 13900H as being Raptor Lake based. Ah, I see now. From somewhere else, "Raptor Lake-H series (Alder Lake architecture)". That's.... 'helpful'. And rather frustrating having incorrect specs some places.

So basically just the higher cpu/gpu and ram frequencies. Think I'll definitely just get the 12900H model then! Which I was already leaning towards, certainly for this purchase.
 

NerdAshes

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Jan 6, 2024
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My review of the three MS-01 cluster I have (I was asked for my opinion by a forum member and thought others may want to see it too).

I think it's okay. I like the low power draw and the low noise. I'm not a fan of the form factor, or motherboard layout. MinisForum (MF) - the company, is also very small and not great at updates, shipping, business in general.

It was a fun challenge to build, but if I had to do it again, I'd just get short depth server chassis and make my own. I've also found the constraints of working with the MS-01 design awkward. MF chose a PCIe 4 x4, PCIe 3 x3, x2 slot for the SSDs. That makes onboard storage weird. They chose a PCIe 4 x16 slot, limited to x8, for the add-on card slot. Only one. They chose 2 10gps SPF slots, I'd rather have 25gps. 2 2.5gps is fine, vPro is "Meh". I don't need/use the USB4 ports or any of the other ports - except one to run a fan - so they are wasting valuable PCIe lanes for me. The i9 chip is fast and has lots of cores and that's useful. It's to bad it's an integrated laptop CPU. I'd rather have ECC server RAM, than the laptop RAM. Being limited to 96GB of RAM is a bummer too. A single power supply brick, is annoying. I'd rather have dual, hot swap power. U.2 drive space is nice, but it's limited to 7mm (15.8GB). I've given the MS-01 it's max spec and will never be able to upgrade it (beyond SSD space). I didn't know I'd feel this way when I ordered them (knowing they were more like laptops).

I've supplied everything except the chassis, CPU and mobo. I'm not sure the value is there, once the build is done.

I've replaced the WiFi card with a Corel TPU, the power supply with a 240watt and, cut a big hole in the case - for a 140mm USB fan. I also added a dual port 100gps Connectx-5 NIC. I suspect if you're not going to do that, and are fine with the MS-01 choices MF made - the value is strong. If the MS-01 is just a desktop for web apps, it's overkill. I think it's best use is connected to a JBOD enclosure and used as a single home server.

I still find the cluster WAY beyond what I need, and I imagine, it would be beyond what most home users would need, for the next 5 years. I don't have any stability issues. Three MS-01 like I've built, three MikroTik 100gps switches with LOTS of DAC cables - pounding out Proxmox/Ceph cluster work loads, uses up about 180watts. Pretty impressive I think.
 
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DaveLTX

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Hmm, interesting. The comparison sites I looked at were specifically listing the H laptop variants, and had the 13900H as being Raptor Lake based. Ah, I see now. From somewhere else, "Raptor Lake-H series (Alder Lake architecture)". That's.... 'helpful'. And rather frustrating having incorrect specs some places.

So basically just the higher cpu/gpu and ram frequencies. Think I'll definitely just get the 12900H model then! Which I was already leaning towards, certainly for this purchase.
Intel groups all of them as Raptor Lake but its the same situation as anything under 13600K being Alder Lake-S. 14600 is finally raptor lake-S but all Raptor Lake H are Alder Lake H

The only similarity they have is literally the generation number... It's skylake all again
 
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DaveLTX

Active Member
Dec 5, 2021
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My review of the three MS-01 cluster I have (I was asked for my opinion by a forum member and thought others may want to see it too).

I think it's okay. I like the low power draw and the low noise. I'm not a fan of the form factor, or motherboard layout. MinisForum (MF) - the company, is also very small and not great at updates, shipping, business in general.

It was a fun challenge to build, but if I had to do it again, I'd just get short depth server chassis and make my own. I've also found the constraints of working with the MS-01 design awkward. MF chose a PCIe 4 x4, PCIe 3 x3, x2 slot for the SSDs. That makes onboard storage weird. They chose a PCIe 4 x16 slot, limited to x8, for the add-on card slot. Only one. They chose 2 10gps SPF slots, I'd rather have 25gps. 2 2.5gps is fine, vPro is "Meh". I don't need/use the USB4 ports or any of the other ports - except one to run a fan - so they are wasting valuable PCIe lanes for me. The i9 chip is fast and has lots of cores and that's useful. It's to bad it's an integrated laptop CPU. I'd rather have ECC server RAM, than the laptop RAM. Being limited to 96GB of RAM is a bummer too. A single power supply brick, is annoying. I'd rather have dual, hot swap power. U.2 drive space is nice, but it's limited to 7mm (15.8GB). I've given the MS-01 it's max spec and will never be able to upgrade it (beyond SSD space). I didn't know I'd feel this way when I ordered them (knowing they were more like laptops).

I've supplied everything except the chassis, CPU and mobo. I'm not sure the value is there, once the build is done.

I've replaced the WiFi card with a Corel TPU, the power supply with a 240watt and, cut a big hole in the case - for a 140mm USB fan. I also added a dual port 100gps Connectx-5 NIC. I suspect if you're not going to do that, and are fine with the MS-01 choices MF made - the value is strong. If the MS-01 is just a desktop for web apps, it's overkill. I think it's best use is connected to a JBOD enclosure and used as a single home server.

I still find the cluster WAY beyond what I need, and I imagine, it would be beyond what most home users would need, for the next 5 years. I don't have any stability issues. Three MS-01 like I've built, three MikroTik 100gps switches with LOTS of DAC cables - pounding out Proxmox/Ceph cluster work loads, uses up about 180watts. Pretty impressive I think.
MF didn't just choose, they didn't have a choice. You're limited to whatever PCIe lanes the CPU has. since PCIe 5.0 doesn't make sense here, they saved costs by going 4.0
And likely the USB4/TB4 lanes are already set aside permanently.
Even if they wanted to, building around current Intel desktop chips is a nightmare. If they were to only bake support for 65W chips people are going to criticize that they don't allow for max boost as 65W chips are horribly underclocked and underperforming at base clock, it's a tradeoff you gotta do. And the desktop chipset is going to add power draw all the more so too. As it stands, the Raptor Lake H chips are already at their limits thermal wise. Workstation exists but a platform like that is easily going to drive costs beyond reasonable doubt

And the Raptor Lake Xeon E? that's a max 8 core. Doesn't support Core i CPUs.

Likely what it'd be fantastic for is definitely a NAS. And router. They're not going to make a hyper specialized product and leave out many people
 

knewt

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Feb 27, 2024
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Intel groups all of them as Raptor Lake but its the same situation as anything under 13600K being Alder Lake-S. 14600 is finally raptor lake-S but all Raptor Lake H are Alder Lake H

The only similarity they have is literally the generation number... It's skylake all again
Thanks. As much as I was possibly tempted by the 13900 originally, I think I'm making the right decision in just grabbing a 12900 then. I'm fairly sure I read on the other thread that the 12900 does work with 96GB of memory, so that's nice.
 

SBMe

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Nov 26, 2023
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Wondering about thoughts on the 13900 vs 12900?

From what I can see, the notable differences are slightly higher cpu/gpu frequencies, increased L2 cache, higher DRAM frequencies and PCIe 5.0 vs 4.0?

So faster, but not massively, and certainly not matching the 22% increase in cost. Anything I'm missing in my comparison?
That's the thing. I don't think the i9-13900 uses the PCIe 5.0 though. However, it IS faster though in single & multi-threading tasks, NanoReview.net & CPU-Monkey.

I think they All use the PCIe 4.0 at x8: Specs about 75% down on the page

1* PCIe 4.0 x16 slot ( Half-height, single-slot, supports up to PCIe 4.0 x 8 speed )

If it did, and truly supported more PCIe lanes overall on the motherboard then I could see the extra cost. However, NanoReview ( 28, 28 ) & CPU-Monkey ( 28, 20 ) differ on how many max PCIe lanes they have, great. DDR5 should be faster though, 12900H is rated at DDR5-4800 and the page says 5200, which really is for the 13th Gen, so that is faster. I have the i9-12900H in my laptop and what I'm typing on right now. Set aside money for many years and hope to have it for 8+ years ( USB laptop cooler always on ).

If I truly had the money, I think I'd go with the 13th Gen, but depending on use case don't really know if it's worth it. If it did have PCIe 5.0 all around and more lanes to back it up, it would be worth it to even put it on credit. Maybe there website is incorrect.

CWWK says one of there 13th Gen routers is PCIe 3.0 when it is really 4.0 so who knows.

If someone has a PCIe 5.0 NVMe I would use CrystalDiskMark and choose the NVMe option and test it for sure with the i9-13900H !!!

Ha, looks like I took way too long to post this. Many other comments, oh well. Shouldn't of skipped out :)
 

NerdAshes

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Jan 6, 2024
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MF didn't just choose, they didn't have a choice. You're limited to whatever PCIe lanes the CPU has.
They had many choices. They chose to use that CPU. They chose what to spend it's PCIe lane budget on.

Likely what it'd be fantastic for is definitely a NAS. And router.
Agreed! I am still waiting on two of the i5 versions, to turn into routers. I'm thinking of turning one into a NAS.

They're not going to make a hyper specialized product and leave out many people
I mean, they kinda did.. the MS-01 is not an "Everyman" type of server or PC. It seems very targeted.

Don't get my review wrong - I'm not mad at MF - I think what they did is neat. I bought 5 of them after all. It was a "If I had to do it again, would I thing". That answer is no, "I" wouldn't. I learned "I" would be better off, in a different direction. Your needs may different, and the MS-01 might fit your needs perfect.
 

knewt

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Feb 27, 2024
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If I truly had the money, I think I'd go with the 13th Gen, but depending on use case don't really know if it's worth it.
So I could afford the money, no issues there. I just don't think I can justify a 22% increase in cost for a fairly small bump in speed :)
 
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NerdAshes

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So I could afford the money, no issues there. I just don't think I can justify a 22% increase in cost for a fairly small bump in speed :)
Don't forget the 24 vs 16 cores (32 vs 24 threads too) though... if used as a Hypervisor, that may matter more than the speed.
Never-mind that's for the K version not the MS-01 H version of the chip... get the Core i9-12900H, unless big.LITTLE tech means something to you.
 
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DaveLTX

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They had many choices. They chose to use that CPU. They chose what to spend it's PCIe lane budget on.
Well... What else are they going to choose? 13900HX with its high power consumption (It's a desktop CPU in BGA!) which at that point might as well socket it?
 

DaveLTX

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Dec 5, 2021
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Don't forget the 24 vs 16 cores (32 vs 24 threads too) though... if used as a Hypervisor, that may matter more than the speed.
Never-mind that's for the K version not the MS-01 H version of the chip... get the Core i9-12900H, unless big.LITTLE tech means something to you.
12900H and 13900H has the same exact configuration.
 
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NerdAshes

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Well... What else are they going to choose? 13900HX with its high power consumption (It's a desktop CPU in BGA!) which at that point might as well socket it?
The world is their oyster. They are making every choice from chassis to screw size, and RAM to CPU. 13900HX has a 55watt power consumption - not sure that qualifies as "high". For me, yes - socket it. ;)
I like being able to replace a CPU - but my wife thinks I'm a silly little man.

12900H and 13900H has the same exact configuration.
Exact same besides:
Turbo Boost frequency 5.4 GHz vs 5 GHz
12% faster single-core
23% faster multi-core
CPU Multiplier of 26x vs 25x
L2 Cache 2MB (per core) vs 1.3MB (per core)
GPU Boost Clock 1500 MHz vs 1450MHz
DDR5-5200 vs DDR5-4800
PCI Express Version 5.0 vs 4.0
 

DaveLTX

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The world is their oyster. They are making every choice from chassis to screw size, and RAM to CPU. 13900HX has a 55watt power consumption - not sure that qualifies as "high". For me, yes - socket it. ;)
I like being able to replace a CPU - but my wife thinks I'm a silly little man.



Exact same besides:
Turbo Boost frequency 5.4 GHz vs 5 GHz
12% faster single-core
23% faster multi-core
CPU Multiplier of 26x vs 25x
L2 Cache 2MB (per core) vs 1.3MB (per core)
GPU Boost Clock 1500 MHz vs 1450MHz
DDR5-5200 vs DDR5-4800
PCI Express Version 5.0 vs 4.0
13900HX has far less efficiency at the low end. Watts does not say anything about it

Again, you're comparing 13900 not the 13900H.
13900 is NOT a 2mb per core. It's 1.25mb per core. It's alder lake H.
Both are based on alder lake H!
Even techpowerup is wrong about it

Also either way the x8 slot is limited to pcie 4.0 on both models (it costs extra to do 5.0)
All Nvme slots on either 12900h or 13900h are 4.0 either way regardless of where it's installed
 
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NerdAshes

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13900HX has far less efficiency at the low end. Watts does not say anything about it
I thought you were saying " 13900HX with its high power consumption " and normally, watts is considered, when measuring power consumption.

Again, you're comparing 13900 not the 13900H.
Nope.

13900 is NOT a 2mb per core. It's 1.25mb per core. It's alder lake H.
I show:
L1 Cache 80K (per core)vs 80K (per core)
L2 Cache 2MB (per core) vs 1280K (per core)
L3 Cache 24MB (shared) vs 24MB (shared)

Both are based on alder lake H!
Well you should inform Intel they got wrong then?
12900H Alder Lake
13900H Raptor Lake
 

DaveLTX

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Raptor lake doesn't mean it's raptor lake! 13400 is raptor lake but also Alder lake based
Oh my god ‍:rolleyes: