Minisforum MS-S1 Max Power Consumption and Noise
Thanks to the inclusion of a 320 Watt internal power supply – needed not only to power the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 SoC but also numerous USB ports and even a PCIe x16 card slot – the Minisforum MS-S1 Max can pull quite a bit of power under load. Even that is altered by its four performance modes, which can shift the TDP of the SoC from 60W all the way up to 130W.
Since we opted to do our performance testing in performance mode, we have done the same thing for power and noise testing as well. In this mode, idle power consumption is around 9 to 12 Watts, bouncing around a bit as Windows works on background tasks. Meanwhile max load power consumption we saw running AI inference was around 120 Watts – though we can push it a bit further with non-standard testing that makes heavier use of that Max+ iGPU as well.
The acoustics in performance mode, as you might imagine, however, are not very impressive. The system is not dead silent even at the best of times, but under load, we were measuring upwards of 43dBA at 1 meter from the system. Lower performance modes will bring this down some, but idle noise never drops as low as our lab’s noise floor, so there is always a bit of noise coming from the mini-PC.
Key Lessons Learned
Having looked at four different Ryzen AI Max-powered mini-PCs at this point, we have developed an increasingly comprehensive view of what the ecosystem around these mini-PCs offers. Overall, Minisforum’s MS-S1 Max was our favorite of the Ryzen AI Max systems.
Being positioned as a high-end system, the MS-S1 Max has no shortage of bells and whistles. While Minisforum cannot do much to alter the SoC itself, they have surrounded it with a fantastic degree of expandability. The internal half-height PCIe slot gives the system a lot of traditional flexibility that few mini-PCs offer. Meanwhile, the use of 80Gbps USB4 v2 ports means that there’s plenty of bandwidth for external peripherals, not to mention the longevity afforded by supporting the very latest and greatest USB standard. Coupled with the dual 10Gb Ethernet ports, the MS-S1 Max ends up with a great feature set that complements its use both as an AI dev box and even as a rackmount system.
We also really liked the case design and serviceability. Being able to slide off the case just by removing two screws is fantastic, especially as it gives easy access to all the user-serviceable components without needing to remove any other fan or cover. As a result, the MS-S1 Max is very easy to work on, as you do not need to go digging through multiple layers of cooling or components to swap our SSDs or the like.
While this bit on the niche side in the AI development space, the ability to run Windows is undoubtedly a boon for this box. With so many other high-performance mini-PCs like Apple’s Mac Studio systems and NVIDIA’s DGX Spark systems currently focused on macOS and Linux respectively, it is nice to have the option to run Windows here, even if it will not necessarily be used. While we do not focus on gaming performance, with the iGPU being so capable, having an x86 CPU, and Windows, means that you can have very solid gaming performance on the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395, as we have gone into in previous reviews.
Final Words
With its wide array of features, easy expandability, and chart-topping performance for a Ryzen AI Max 395+ box (beating all of the rest of our Ryzen AI Max+ 395 systems in both GPU workloads and multi-threaded workloads), it is easy to see why we have been enamored with Minisforum’s MS-S1 Max. Minisforum has released a high-end Ryzen AI Max system, and it delivers exactly the kind of system that showcases AMD’s high-performance SoC in the best possible light.
In terms of hardware and performance, the worst thing we can say about the MS-S1 Max is that the acoustics are middling for a mini-PC, largely a consequence of Minisforum making sure they would be able to cool the Ryzen SoC even at its highest performance mode. In that respect it would be nice if the MS-S1 Max were a little quieter, though that should not be taken to mean it is loud.
Otherwise, the high-end, high-priced nature of the box does make for some interesting alignments in the competitive landscape. With a sticker price of $2900-$3000, this system is running right up against the low-end configurations of NVIDIA’s GB10 systems, the cheapest of which start at around $3000. As a result, Minisforum’s MS-S1 Max is in direct competition with those boxes. On the one hand, it lacks the 200G NICs that are the backbone of the NVIDIA system, but on the other hand, the MS-S1 Max has far more expandability than the NVIDIA system, both inside and outside. As a result, the MS-S1 Max offers an interesting variation on how a high-end AI development-focused mini-PC can be configured, one with its own set of strengths and weaknesses. Conversely, however, this does make the MS-S1 Max a relatively expensive Ryzen AI Max+ 395 system if you only need the bare essentials. In our Substack for CES 2026, we went into how memory pricing and availability is leading companies like Minisforum to focus on existing models like the S1-Max rather than launching new Strix Halo products.
On the whole, Minisforum did a great job overall with the MS-S1 Max, and it shows in virtually every way. In our testing it has become our favorite of the Ryzen AI Max systems, and all of this has been well-earned by Minisforum’s feature and design choices.
Where To Buy
If you wanted to find the Minisforum MS-S1 Max online, here is an Amazon Affiliate link.
Is there a block diagram of how all the things are connected? My understanding is of the PCI-E lanes on Strix Halo makes me think there are must be switch chips in this.
Any chance of testing the USB4 v2 ports since that is what sets this apart imho.
Thanks for the review!
Any hardware or software with “AI” is a “NO SALE” here.
I just don’t see the “value proposition of AI” … except to the shysters & hucksters that are promoting that snake oil hair tonic.
Why is they an HDMI instead of displayport? Are people using these in the living room? Just seems like an odd choice. USB to displayport mostly works, but can be glitchy in my experience.
The second M.2 storage slot is *not* PCIe gen4 x4. It’s an x1 slot. See https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ms-s1-max-mini-pc . I assume this is how they can cram all that other I/O in given Strix Halo has limited PCIe lanes available.
(Also, please support + signs in email addresses.)
According to the official product page for this, the second M.2 SSD slot isn’t gen4x4 but gen4x1. You might want to fix that in this review (or get Minisforum to fix their product page if they got that wrong).
Sigh. Once again, it would be great to see comparisons with other system types (Spark and Mac, primarily).
It’s actually getting pretty interesting now! The DGX Spark has 200gbps Ethernet, and the Ryzen has dual 80gbps USB4 (can it use them natively? Or do you need some TB5Ethernet? Do they have full bandwidth to the CPU?). Meanwhile the Mac Mini Pro has TB5, and the new RDMA-enabled drivers. Which is faster?? The answer isn’t obvious, nor likely the same for all cases.
Unfortunately, as with many of the other recent reviews, this just covers the surface issues.
Grrr, the comment system ate some of my text. “TB5Ethernet” should be read as “TB5 to Ethernet adapters”.
Thanks Manoj. I’m not sure how we missed that since it was in the notes, but that’s a definite error on our part. The article has been updated accordingly.
As for the plus signs, I hear you. That’s a site software thing; I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you.
Sorry about that, George. As nice as it would be to have, the lab boys didn’t put together a block diagram for this PC. And with everyone out on assignment right now, we won’t have an opportunity to put one together this week.
Biggest deficit vs the nvidia spark would be having “only” 2x 10gb ethernet (which wouldn’t be too shabby except afaik it won’t do RDMA).
I’m playing with 3 of these in my homelab. Has anyone gotten a >10gb ethernet with ROCEv2 to work in one?
Which USB4v2 80Gbps chipset does it implement? Is Intel JHL9580 TB5 in compatibility mode? Cannot find any native USB4v2 chipset on the market.
Cant wait to see the breakage reports on Reddit because some butchgeek tried to shoehorn an oversized, megafanned GPU into that case at the same time loading up every M.2 slot, maximum accessories on the USB ports and run both 10GbE all out with Proxmox. After all one has to prove they can game, mine, route, firewall, VPN, NAS and who knows what else on a single box.
He who can overload the smallest PC with the most active programs and accessories wins and will be awarded the trophy with a golden broken PC on it.
@Otto says:
“Which USB4v2 80Gbps chipset does it implement? Is Intel JHL9580 TB5 in compatibility mode? Cannot find any native USB4v2 chipset on the market.”
Its built in the AMD Strix Halo. 4 PCIe Gen 4 lanes are reserved for each USBv2 port. They also support PD3.1 (up to 240W) per port but honestly with that 320W PSU, anyone trying to draw that much on that USB4v2 port will probably crash the system or get an auto shutdown.
@Chris Green
“I’m playing with 3 of these in my homelab. Has anyone gotten a >10gb ethernet with ROCEv2 to work in one?”
The Realtek RTL 8127 10GbE chipset does not support ROCEv2. It is a low end consumer grade ethernet chip. It will never work.
@spuwho: I know that. I meant via an add on card in the pci slot.
@spuwho Unfortunately that isn’t true, Strix Halo does not provide native USB4v2 support. If you had read the review, you would have noticed this excerpt: “Rather than just using 40Gbps ports, the company has installed a discrete USB4 V2 controller on the motherboard, allowing it to drive a pair of USB4 V2 80Gps ports”.
@sheldonross I totally agree, it is odd. Computers should have DisplayPort, then optionally HDMI. Not the other way around. As you said, most are not connecting this to a TV. I’d probably run it headless once Linux was installed.
Patrick, are your substack subscriptions affordable for us mere mortals yet? The content is always interesting but it’s very frustrating that the price is so high.
AMD Strix Halo have a total of 16 PCIe gen4 lines, no more.
– 4 are use for 1 nvme
– 2 are use for the 2 10Gbs
– 1 for Wifi
– 1 for the 2e nvme
– 4 for the PCIe 16x port
=> so at best this left 4 lines for the USB4v2 ie 2 lines per USB Port…
2 line PCIe gen4 is 32Gb/s you never will have 80Gb/s of data on the USB4v2 port, most of the bandweight is for Display, not data.
If we can have more than 20Gb/s of data it will be not that bad … but don’t dream for 80Gb/s
USB4v2/TB5 has 4x lanes shared, it does full speed (80Gb) I run a eGPU and it gets just under 6000MB/s on memory read/write (thus indirectly measuring the link speed). Oculink gets 6800MB/s and has no meaningful performance difference. I found the fps difference in link saturating games be smaller than that read/write would suggest while tb4 is at least 30% lower.
With latest bios I have to say at least on windows TB4/5 is amazingly stable and works. Plugging tb4 or 5 or directly hdmi on machine all just works arbitrarily on intel TB5 chip on the dock. I think this was not the case earlier. Linux I have not tested since bios update.
Overall considering minisforum absolutely maxed out the options on this I think it was worth the extra price which was about 300-500e over the generic sixunited motherboard machines last year. Now the price has gone up a lot.
Power consumption on idle without desktop goes down to 5-6W, windows as mentioned is closer to 10W (with desktop obviously). Gaming runs about 150-160W on power meter. Synthetic goes up to 220W or so and drops to about 200W which i think it will sustain. Gaming with eGPU drops it down to 50W or so, this would suggest the iGPU can draw serious power.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54768547167_bfa91a993d_b.jpg
Is a diagram of the Strix Halo PCIe lane chart.
My AMD USB4 controller says (Ryzen 9 6900HX)
[AMD] Rembrandt USB4/Thunderbolt NHI Controller
There are no other USB4v2/TB5 chipssets beyond Intel, Asmedia and Via says they wont be going to fab with their discrete controllers until late 2026/early 2027 . So it must be an internal AMD configuration. NHI is what Intel uses to perform TB device control. (Native Host Integration)