Minisforum has expanded its MS-A2 mini workstation lineup with more affordable configurations, pushing the entry price below $500 (€460) for the first time. The company now offers Ryzen 7 7745HX and Ryzen 9 8945HX variants alongside the existing Ryzen 9 7945HX and Ryzen 9 9955HX models.
The new Ryzen 7 7745HX configuration starts at $439 (€404) as a barebones unit and reaches $919 (€846) with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. This eight-core processor offers half the cores and threads of the higher-end Ryzen 9 chips but delivers a more accessible entry point. The Ryzen 9 8945HX variant, essentially a rebadged Ryzen 9 7945HX, slots in at $599 (€551) for the barebones model and $1,119 (€1,030) fully configured. The original Ryzen 9 7945HX and Ryzen 9 9955HX models remain available at $559 (€514) and $799 (€735) respectively.
The MS-A2 features dual 10Gbps SFP+ networking ports with an Intel X710 controller, a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot that can split into dual x4 configurations, and three M.2 storage slots with support for U.2 NVMe drives up to 15 TB. The system handles triple displays via HDMI (8K at 60Hz) and dual USB-C ports with DisplayPort alt mode. A dual-fan cooling system with four heat pipes keeps the 16-core processors under control during demanding workloads.
The MS-A2 has gained traction in the homelab community for its Linux compatibility and virtualization capabilities. Users report successful deployments with Proxmox VE 9.0.3, Ubuntu 24.04, and TrueNAS SCALE, with the Intel X710 network controller using the well-supported i40e Linux driver. The dual 10GbE SFP+ ports and flexible storage configuration make it suitable for high-performance NAS builds and network virtualization labs. One installation quirk surfaces during Proxmox setup, where users must select ZFS raid options instead of the default ext4 filesystem to complete installation successfully.
