MINISFORUM Releases AR900i: A Powerful Mini-ITX Motherboard

MINISFORUM has introduced the AR900i, a Mini-ITX motherboard in the MoDT (mobile on desktop) form factor. Priced at $470 on Amazon, the board comes with an integrated Intel Core i9-13900HX mobile processor and a pre-installed cooling solution. With a limited-period $70-off coupon, this motherboard offers great value.

The i9-13900HX is a high-performance "Raptor Lake" based mobile processor, featuring all 8 P-cores, 16 E-cores, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache physically present on the silicon. The P-cores can boost up to 5.40 GHz, while the E-cores can reach up to 3.90 GHz. However, compared to a desktop i9-13900, the power specifications of the i9-13900HX are designed for notebook power constraints. It has a base power of 55 W and a maximum turbo power of 157 W, whereas the socketed i9-13900 has a power of 225 W.

Since the Core i9-13900HX is a mobile BGA1964 package that is permanently attached to the board, it cannot be upgraded. MINISFORUM has developed a specific cooling solution for this processor, which includes a large aluminium fin-stack heatsink and an 80 mm case fan for ventilation. Additionally, there is a secondary fan-heatsink that cools two M.2-2280 slots located above the processor.

The AR900i motherboard features an M.2 E-key slot that can be paired with a WLAN card, and it comes with provision for dual-MIMO ready antennas. It also includes two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots that support up to 96 GB of memory. Power is supplied to the board through a 24-pin ATX and a single 8-pin EPS connector, which is sufficient for this processor's requirements.