Minisforum MS-01 vs Minisforum MS-A2
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Recommended
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Highly recommended
Our verdict
Editorial opinionOur verdict
Same chassis, same 10 GbE SFP+ ports and PCIe slot. The MS-A2 has twice the cores (16 Zen 5) and takes 96 GB; the MS-01 has Intel Quick Sync for media transcoding and USB4. Pick the MS-A2 for VMs, the MS-01 if Plex or Jellyfin run on it too.
| Factual data | Minisforum MS-01 | Minisforum MS-A2 |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i9-13900H | AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX |
| Cores / threads | 14 / 20 | 16 / 32More |
| RAM | 96 GB | 96 GB |
| Drive slots | 3 | 3 |
| Network | 4 × 10 GbE | 4 × 10 GbE |
| Video engine (encode) | H.264, HEVC 8-bit, HEVC 10-bit (HDR), VP9 | H.264, HEVC 8-bit, HEVC 10-bit (HDR) |
| Processor power | 45 WAdvantage | 55 W |
| Size | 196 × 189 × 48 mm | 196 × 189 × 48 mm |
| Price from | $679Advantage | $799 |
What each one is good forDerived from the specs
| Uses | Minisforum MS-01 | Minisforum MS-A2 |
|---|---|---|
| Home Assistant | GoodOfficial or well-supported Home Assistant OS image | GoodOfficial or well-supported Home Assistant OS image |
| Media server | Great fitIntel Quick Sync: the best-supported transcoding in Plex and Jellyfin | GoodHardware encoding works (AMD VCN), with lower quality and fewer streams than Quick Sync |
| Homelab / Proxmox | Great fitUp to 96 GB of RAM in SO-DIMM slots | Great fitUp to 96 GB of RAM in SO-DIMM slots |
| Router / firewall | Great fit4 network ports, up to 10 GbE | Good4 network ports, up to 10 GbE |
| NAS | Good3 internal drive slots (3× M.2) | Good3 internal drive slots (3× M.2) |
| Desktop | Great fitWindows 11 supported | Great fitWindows 11 supported |
| Electronics / GPIO | Not suitableNo GPIO header: add a USB microcontroller board instead | Not suitableNo GPIO header: add a USB microcontroller board instead |
Software supportEditorial opinion
| Windows 11 | Excellent | Excellent |
|---|---|---|
| Linux (Debian, Ubuntu or vendor image) | Excellent | Excellent |
| Proxmox VE | Excellent | Excellent |
| Home Assistant OS | Excellent | Excellent |
| OPNsense / pfSense / OpenWrt | Excellent | Excellent |