Hey everyone,
Just wanted to start a thread on what looks like a super interesting compact motherboard from Minisforum, the Minisforum BD895i SE Mini-ITX motherboard. It’s now listed on Minisforum’s store: MINISFORM BD895i SE Motherboard| AMD Ryzen™ 9 8945HX
This is a Mini-ITX motherboard with a built-in high-end AMD processor. It has:
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Integrated AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX with 16 cores and 32 threads, running at ~2.5 GHz base and up to 5.4 GHz turbo. It is essentially bringing laptop H-series performance to a DIY board.
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Mini-ITX form factor (about 170×170 mm), ideal for compact builds.
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Support for up to 96 GB DDR5 RAM via two SO-DIMM slots at DDR5-5200 speeds
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Dual M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 SSD slots for fast storage
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PCIe 5.0 ×16 slot, so you can pair this with a full-size GPU if you want a powerful compact gaming or workstation build
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Triple display outputs — HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4, and a USB-C Alt-DP port — all capable of up to 8K @ 60 Hz
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2.5 G Ethernet and plenty of USB connectivity, which makes this board versatile beyond typical SFF builds
This board looks like Minisforum’s answer to the growing demand for powerful, compact, DIY-friendly platforms. The chip is soldered directly onto the board, and they have struck an interesting balance with this platform. It has a much higher performance than typical ITX boards, but it still has a small footprint and reasonable power use compared to full desktop CPUs.
Why it’s exciting
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This could be a killer option for compact workstations — think video editing, coding, virtualization, and even content creation
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It has a PCIe 5.0 slot opens up serious upgrade paths for GPUs or other expansion cards
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It feels like a new category between traditional mini-ITX boards and full mini-PCs, which tend to lock you into fixed configurations.
I currently have a wide range of boards from Minisforum, including the BD795M and BD790i and BD790X3D boards. All of these have been really great performers in my home lab. What do you guys think? I am not sure with RAM prices the way they are if anyone will be building something new, but thinking if you already have DDR5 memory and a stick of NVMe would this be something you would consider as an upgrade to something you already have? Let me know.