Minisforum is introducing the NAD9 mini PC model as part of the Neptune lineup that is aimed at high-performance productivity tasks. Powered by Intel’s i9-12900H processor, the NAD9 features an optimized cooling system for quiet operation and supports up to four separate 4K monitors.
Intel’s i9-12900H is among the fastest mobile processors available right now. It packs 6 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores (20 threads) clocked at a maximum 5 GHz clock, plus it integrates the Iris Xe GPU with 96 EUs that provides decent performance for light gaming and content creation. According to Minisforum’s internal tests, the i9-12900H is ~15% faster than AMD’s Ryzen 9 6900HX.
The upper lid of the mini PC comes with a large mesh design that facilitates the intake of cool air, which is filtered through a cooling system with a smart fan, heatsink and three copper heat pipes to dissipate the heat produced by the processor and other components through three lateral air vents.
There is support for up to 64 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, as well as one M.2 slot for a PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD plus two 2.5-inch bays for SATA 3 drives. Wi-Fi 6 connectivity is provided through a pre-installed M.2 card. Port selection is quite robust with 2x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 connectors with DP mode plus an additional USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 data transfer mode only, 1x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 2x USB 2.0 , 2x HDMI 2.0b, 2.5 GbE jack and mic + headphone jacks. The case measures 8.2 x 7.1 x 2.6 inches and also comes with a stand.
Pre-sale prices start at US$569 for the barebones model without RAM and storage, but Minisforum offers a 16 Gb RAM + 512 GB SSD configuration for US$679, as well as a 32 GB + 512 GB for US$719 and a 32 GB + 1 TB for US$759.
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I first stepped into the wondrous IT&C world when I was around seven years old. I was instantly fascinated by computerized graphics, whether they were from games or 3D applications like 3D Max. I’m also an avid reader of science fiction, an astrophysics aficionado, and a crypto geek. I started writing PC-related articles for Softpedia and a few blogs back in 2006. I joined the Notebookcheck team in the summer of 2017 and am currently a senior tech writer mostly covering processor, GPU, and laptop news.
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