Review AMD 7950X equivalent 140 watt powerhouse, for about $700 (or $580)

TennesseeTony · Mar 21, 2025

edited: $580 as long as the coupon lasts:
https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-mini-itx-pc-790s7-129i7?variant=45966680817909 coupon code MS70
Case and 400w PSU included: $430 after tax
plus $100 for RAM
Plus $50 for NVME SSD

________________________

Original post:
I was browsing YouTube and saw a few videos for this little beast. I couldn't resist building one (or two). edit: now 4, ERR, UHM, six!

Including tax of about 10% for my area, costs are as follows:

$ 440 for MB/CPU/heatsink (don't forget to select the $100 off coupon)
$ 100 for 32GB laptop RAM
$ 40-60 for a PSU
$ 50 for a cheap case
$ 50 to infinity for an NVME SSD
$ 5 for a 120mm fan, maybe add a wireless adapter.

Many components I already had a supply of.

What it is: A mobile AMD Ryzen 9-7950X combo. 100W for CPU, the other 40W is for SSD, RAM, and system losses. MSI AfterBurner claims 30W for the integrated graphics at idle, but I find that suspicious. 140W total from the outlet.

Performance:
5% slower than my desktop 7950X
4% slower than my 32 core Epyc 7452
172% FASTER than a 22 core XEON E5-2699A v4
I derived these figures from SiDock daily output scores, so not accurate perhaps

The BIOS has options for 45/55/75/100 watts, but I have not been able to get it to change from 100W. I have the same problem with my desktop 7950X, refuses to change TDP. Probably an ID10T failure, with me being the ID10T.
Another headache is it will NOT boot from M2 SATA SSDs, only NVME. I have a lot of old spare M2's in SATA, sad they aren't compatible. Also no SATA ports on the MB. Integrated graphics is weak of course.
Practically zero documentation. You have to assemble the 120mm fan brackets to the heatsink, and screw on the backplate. Comes with a slot for wifi card, and another bracket to assemble, to hold it.

Otherwise has been a reliable, powerful little cruncher, running about 80C with a slow fan. PCIe v5.0 16x slot, so might toss in a 4090 eventually.

MINISFORUM BD795i SE Motherboard AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX(16C/32T)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNPZ874Y?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

(don't forget to select the $100 off coupon)

mmonnin03 · Mar 21, 2025

Link shows $499
This one is $399 for some reason

https://www.amazon.com/MINISFORUM-Motherboard-BD795i-SE-PCIe4-0/dp/B0DQ8WXMKP?th=1

The $499 product shows specs of 7945HX on one image and Geekbench spec of 7940HX in another image.

TennesseeTony · Mar 22, 2025

The one I linked to has a $100 coupon you have to select. I'll update the original post.

Skillz · Mar 22, 2025

Tony, you really should visit Discord more often. We have around 3 or 4 of them within' the team. But I guess we should also post more on the forums the information and stuff we figure out.

The only major problem with them, so far, has been the slow, extremely slow shipping on them.
(although ordering them from Amazon, when shipped by Amazon, might not have that problem. I think everyone bought them directly from Minisforum)

mmonnin03 said:
Link shows $499
This one is $399 for some reason

https://www.amazon.com/MINISFORUM-Motherboard-BD795i-SE-PCIe4-0/dp/B0DQ8WXMKP?th=1

The $499 product shows specs of 7945HX on one image and Geekbench spec of 7940HX in another image.

But the other link is already the $399 price. So that's weird.

StefanR5R · Mar 22, 2025

TennesseeTony said:
The BIOS has options for 45/55/75/100 watts, but I have not been able to get it to change from 100W.

Weird; AMD's 7945HX specs say 55…75 (default 55) Watts TDP. Though maybe the minisforum 100 W power limit is the PPT limit, not the TDP…?

TennesseeTony said:
no SATA ports on the MB.

On the upside, there is no useless¹ Promontory 21 southbridge like on AM5 mainboards.² Seems like the Ethernet chip is the only discrete PCIe device on this mainboard; everything else seems to be implemented in the 7945HX SoC.

¹) useless to a distributed computing node, and in other use patterns too
²) with the exception of Asrock Deskmini and Deskmeet, and Asrock Rack AM5D4ID

IEC · Mar 23, 2025

Does it support ECC? Those look like DDR5 SODIMM slots?

Edit: Yeesh, DDR5 ECC (with 10 modules, i.e. full ECC not the on-die stuff) is still super expensive. Like, $500 for 96GB (2x48GB) of DDR5-5600 CL46 ECC 1.1V. Though I'm tempted to buy it for my Epyc setup.

Skillz · Mar 23, 2025

IEC said:
Does it support ECC? Those look like DDR5 SODIMM slots?

Edit: Yeesh, DDR5 ECC (with 10 modules, i.e. full ECC not the on-die stuff) is still super expensive. Like, $500 for 96GB (2x48GB) of DDR5-5600 CL46 ECC 1.1V. Though I'm tempted to buy it for my Epyc setup.

Keep in mind that Desktop DDR5 is NOT compatible with Server DDR5. They are slotted differently.

These systems use laptop memory. IE: SODIMMs
I don't know if they sell SODIMM ECC memory.

Which EPYC do you have?

IEC · Mar 23, 2025

Skillz said:
Keep in mind that Desktop DDR5 is NOT compatible with Server DDR5. They are slotted differently.

These systems use laptop memory. IE: SODIMMs
I don't know if they sell SODIMM ECC memory.

Which EPYC do you have?

4564P - AM5

So I'm talking about unbuffered UDIMM, not RDIMMs

There also appear to be unbuffered ECC SODIMMs

TennesseeTony · Mar 23, 2025

Skillz said:
We have around 3 or 4 of them within' the team.

Has anyone been able to get them to run at less than 100 watts?

They only use standard Laptop SODIMM, @IEC

Skillz · Mar 23, 2025

TennesseeTony said:
Has anyone been able to get them to run at less than 100 watts?

They only use standard Laptop SODIMM, @IEC

I don't think any of them are running 100W to be honest. It was months ago (like last year) that a few of our teammates got their hands on some to play with. All that info is somewhere on discord, but it's difficult to look that many months back at info.

@Icecold and @ChelseaOilman (does he not have an account here? what the heck lol) are the two that got them afaik. Also ASI (aperture_science_innavators) from [H]ardOCP has a few that he's running. He is also in our discord, but I don't think he's on our forums.

edit
Chelsea does have an account, it just wasnt popping up when I entered it.

TennesseeTony · Mar 23, 2025

I figured out how to change the wattage/ TDP/PPT for the MINISFORUM systems. After making the power change in BIOS, there is a 2nd option (SmartShift) set to AUTO.

Bios/Advanced/AMD CBS/SMU Common Options/

Set configuration to desired wattage, change SmartShift to manual

Many new fields appear, set all of them to the desired milliwatt, so 75 watts becomes 75000 in each field.

Now running at 113 watts at the wall, performance to be determined.

TennesseeTony · Mar 23, 2025

New deal, $430 (after coupon) plus tax, same board and CPU but with a case and 400w PSU, $30 off with coupon GG30 :

MINISFORUM 795S7/129i7

The compact 7L design of Mini ITX PC takes center stage, paired with a timeless design philosophy. The classic carbon black minimalist style creates a sleek yet professional appearance, ideal for business and entertainment.

store.minisforum.com

Skillz · Mar 23, 2025

MS70 gives you $70 off

TennesseeTony · Mar 23, 2025

Shizt. Just ordered at 30 off, lol

Skillz · Mar 23, 2025

TennesseeTony said:
Shizt. Just ordered at 30 off, lol

ASI posted it in Discord lol

Icecold · Mar 23, 2025

If you email them they'll probably give you a partial refund. I had an issue before where they took forever to ship and the price dropped in the mean time so I emailed them asking them to match the new lower price and they did it without issue.

StefanR5R · Mar 24, 2025

TennesseeTony said:
I figured out how to change the wattage/ TDP/PPT for the MINISFORUM systems. After making the power change in BIOS, there is a 2nd option (SmartShift) [...]

A related but more general question:
Does anybody around here consider core clock limits as a viable way to power-limit CPUs, in these days and age of more advanced CPU power management?
I haven't tried this myself lately — only have set TDP and PPT limits in BIOSes, except for throttling an old Haswell laptop occasionally. From what I understand, modifying the peak clock frequency instead of (or in addition to) setting power limits has

the downside of leaving power draw very dependent on which workload is being run (example: MilkyWay < Asteroids < PrimeGrid),
the upside of being possible any time on a running system (Windows and Linux), without having to reboot into BIOS.

Any opinions and experiences with that? I suppose the mentioned downside is pretty serious if you have two or more projects active at once.

Markfw · Mar 24, 2025

StefanR5R said:
A related but more general question:
Does anybody around here consider core clock limits as a viable way to power-limit CPUs, in these days and age of more advanced CPU power management?
I haven't tried this myself lately — only have set TDP and PPT limits in BIOSes, except for throttling an old Haswell laptop occasionally. From what I understand, modifying the peak clock frequency instead of (or in addition to) setting power limits has

the downside of leaving power draw very dependent on which workload is being run (example: MilkyWay < Asteroids < PrimeGrid),

the upside of being possible any time on a running system (Windows and Linux), without having to reboot into BIOS.

Any opinions and experiences with that? I suppose the mentioned downside is pretty serious if you have two or more projects active at once.

As you all know about my electric bill, any way to save power and heat is good with me. However, I set the temps to a limits and let the chip regulate the power, and seems to work in reducing power usage as well.

Skillz · Mar 24, 2025

StefanR5R said:
A related but more general question:
Does anybody around here consider core clock limits as a viable way to power-limit CPUs, in these days and age of more advanced CPU power management?
I haven't tried this myself lately — only have set TDP and PPT limits in BIOSes, except for throttling an old Haswell laptop occasionally. From what I understand, modifying the peak clock frequency instead of (or in addition to) setting power limits has

the downside of leaving power draw very dependent on which workload is being run (example: MilkyWay < Asteroids < PrimeGrid),

the upside of being possible any time on a running system (Windows and Linux), without having to reboot into BIOS.

Any opinions and experiences with that? I suppose the mentioned downside is pretty serious if you have two or more projects active at once.

Unfortunately I don't ever mess with that stuff other than giving it MORE power. I look more for the "balls to the wall" settings.

BGod · Mar 24, 2025

Skillz, Here's the setting I think you're looking for: "Balls To The Wall"

crashtech · Mar 24, 2025

I don't know if I'm an outlier, but I like to set a lower Tjmax, like to 75°, and let the CPU take care of the rest. I don't suppose this limits power much if you have very good cooling, though.

StefanR5R · Mar 25, 2025

@Markfw and @crashtech, thanks for the pointer to set a temperature limit. I didn't have this on my radar anymore, as the CPUs and GPUs which I currently have run at ≈65 °C or less. (Only some mainboard VRMs of mine get hotter than this.) But I sure am thinking of getting some newer gear with which chip temperature may return as an issue to deal with. Not allowing a chip to exceed a given temperature is indeed another indirect way to limit power consumption, and it also is a way to prevent the chip from operating at a degraded power efficiency level (as higher temperatures necessitate higher Voltage for same clock frequency).

Apropos: Ryzen 9 7950X --> default Tjmax = 95°C ------- Ryzen 9 7945HX --> default Tjmax = 100°C
I suppose AMD allowed those additional 5 degrees for the mobile Ryzen to achieve its peak clocks in single-core loads even with cooling systems which are not as performant as desktop coolers.

IEC · Mar 26, 2025

crashtech said:
I don't know if I'm an outlier, but I like to set a lower Tjmax, like to 75°, and let the CPU take care of the rest. I don't suppose this limits power much if you have very good cooling, though.

You're not an outlier. My ASRock boards don't do ECO mode properly so I just set a temp limit to 75C so it never overshoots 80C. Due to overkill liquid cooling it still boosts nearly as high, but does force it to run in a more efficient part of the v/f curve overall.

Hail The Brain Slug · Mar 26, 2025

IEC said:
4564P - AM5

So I'm talking about unbuffered UDIMM, not RDIMMs

There also appear to be unbuffered ECC SODIMMs

No, it does not support ECC SoDIMM. I have a BD790i and 2x32GB Kingston Server Premier 5600MHz ECC SoDIMMs.

It boots and operates just fine with ECC SoDIMM. ECC does not function in any OS with any bios configuration (in newer bioses, the settings are exposed to configure yourself).

I have been checking every bios update, but I believe the FL1 socket may not have pinout for the additional memory channel width as AMD advertises no ECC support and I have not seen any product of any kind with an FL1 processor that has been made to support it.

In speaking with the engineers at Minisforum, they have claimed adding ECC support is not possible for this line of products, citing that platform support from AMD is not possible.

Review AMD 7950X equivalent 140 watt powerhouse, for about $700 (or $580)

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