Minisforum let me go hands-on with its CES 2026 Innovation Award-winning Mini Workstation, so to get a grasp of what the diminutive new Minisforum MS-02 Ultra could offer, I decided to see if it could replace my aging but capable desktop PC.
This is a true David vs Goliath battle, at least in terms of physical presence. The sub-5-liter MS-02 Ultra battles with my much larger desktop system packed into a 55-liter Fractal Define S PC case. However, the result of the clash wasn’t as clear-cut as I expected, making me wonder what kind of PC I should be using daily in 2026.
Image 1 of 3 (Image credit: Tom's Hardware) (Image credit: Tom's Hardware) (Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
Before we get into a specifications table, where you can see exactly how these two systems compare feature-by-feature, it is important to highlight the physical differences. The MS-02 Ultra is an incredible 11 times smaller than my Define S-desktop system. Obviously, such a small size means there are sacrifices to be made in terms of expandability, configurability, thermals, and noise. But those limitations are counterweighted by the benefits of the device being much physically smaller. Dare I say, the Minisforum is kind of portable, and even cute, which is not something I could say about the Define S PC.
The table below makes clear the specs of the Minisforum MS-02 Ultra workstation against those of the system it will have to battle on my desk.
Swipe to scroll horizontally System Minisforum MS-02 Ultra Fractal Define S custom PC Processor Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX. Arrow Lake chip with 24C/24T runs at up to 5.5 GHz. Intel Core i5-14400F. Raptor Lake Refresh with 10C/16T, up to 4.7 GHz. CPU cooling 6-heatpipe cooling with 70 and 60mm fans and PCM Noctua NH-U12A with 2x 120mm fans Discrete graphics Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 OC LP 8GB AMD Radeon RX 9070 16GB RAM 32GB at DDR5-4800 (4x SODIMM slots, ECC supported) 32GB DDR4-3200 (4x DIMM slots) Storage 1TB PCIe4x4 NVMe SSD (4x M.2 SSD slots) 1TB PCIe4x4 NVMe SSD (2x M.2 slots), 500GB SATA SSD (4x SATA ports) Motherboard Minisforum HM870 chipset. Soldered CPU Gigabyte B760 DS3H DDR4, LGA 1700, full ATX I/O Rear: HDMI 2.1, USB4 Type-C with DP-Alt and PD, 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2. Front: 2 x USB4 v2 with DP-Alt, USB 3.2 Gen 2, 3.5mm combo audio Rear: HDMI 2.1, DP, USB-C 20Gb/s, Type-A 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 4x USB 2, 1x PS/2 Combo, 3x 3.5mm audio. Front: 2x USB 3.0, 2x 3.5mm audio Networking 10 GbE, 2.5 GbE, 2x 25 GbE, Wi-Fi 7, BT 5.4 1 GbE, Wi-Fi 6 via USB adapter PCIe slots PCIe5.0 x16, PCIe4.0 x16, PCIe4.0 x4 (the 16x slots offer bifurcation options) PCIe4.0 x16 slot, 4x PCIe3.0 x16 Physical 221.5 x 225 x 79mm, 4.8 liters. 3.45kg without dGPU 233 x 451 x 520mm, 54.6 liters. 8.5kg unpopulated OS Windows 11 Pro Windows 11 Pro
CPU and GPU showdown
The Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX should be much more capable than the i5-14400F that I bought at Amazon for $115 last year. It tempts with the advantages of its modern Intel architecture, higher clock boost, and easily outguns my Raptor Lake Refresh chip on core count. Moreover, the new platform brings quite a lot of modern niceties. Particularly welcome, from my perspective, are the trio of really fast USB4 (including 2x USB4 v2) ports, all with DisplayPort capabilities.
A distinct advantage I expected in moving to the MS-02 Ultra was from the increased core count using Intel’s more modern architecture. Indeed, CPU-heavy benchmarks would show the new chip could convincingly eclipse the old mid-range Core i5-14400F in both single- and multicore workloads, given sufficient power supply and cooling capacity. But, we'll see how that translates to ‘Mark’s world’ of computing in the benchmarks section, below.
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