A New Contender in the Gorgon Halo Segment

Minisforum has officially expanded its product lineup, entering the high-performance Gorgon Halo market with the launch of its MS-S1 MAX-P495 workstation. This compact but powerful machine is currently available via a limited-time promotional offer, bringing the price down to $7,399 from its standard retail point of $9,249. This move places Minisforum in direct competition with other recent market entrants, such as HP’s ZBook Ultra G3a and the GMKtec EVO-X5 Pro.


Performance and Processing Power

At the heart of the MS-S1 MAX-P495 lies the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 processor. This chip is built with 16 Zen 5 cores and 32 threads, capable of achieving boost clock speeds of up to 5.2GHz. The system is paired with an impressive 192GB of LPDDR5x memory operating at 8,533MT/s, supported by a 2TB solid-state drive.

For graphical and AI-focused tasks, the workstation utilizes the integrated Radeon 8065S graphics, based on the RDNA 3.5 architecture. Furthermore, the built-in NPU is designed to handle demanding AI workloads, offering up to 55 TOPS of performance, with a total combined AI capability reaching 131 TOPS.


Connectivity and Scalability

The device is designed for flexibility, offering robust connectivity options and expansion capabilities:

  • Networking: Dual 10GbE ports and Wi-Fi 7 integration.
  • Expansion: Includes a PCIe x16 slot and two M.2 slots for additional hardware or storage upgrades.
  • I/O: Features USB4 ports with Power Delivery and DisplayPort functionality.

The storage configuration also supports RAID 0 or RAID 1 setups, providing users with the choice between enhanced throughput or data redundancy.


Design and Operational Modes

Minisforum has engineered the chassis to be highly adaptable. It features a sophisticated cooling system composed of dual fans, copper heat components, and phase-change material to manage power consumption up to 160W. The unit can be positioned either horizontally or vertically to suit various workspaces.

Users can toggle between four specific operating modes—Performance, Balance, Quiet, and Rack—to optimize system behavior. The inclusion of a "Rack" mode, alongside a cascade power-on feature, makes it suitable for environments requiring rack integration or multi-unit clusters. Notably, the manufacturer suggests that two of these 192GB systems can be linked as an AI cluster, noting that it can achieve 16 tokens per second locally when running Qwen3.5 397B.

Shipments for the MS-S1 MAX-P495 are currently projected to begin in mid-October 2026 for the US market.