Minisforum announces MGA1, GPU dock with a Radeon RX 7600M XT for US$559

This week, Minisforum announced the launch of the MGA1, its new dock for external GPUs that already comes with a Radeon RX 7600M XT installed. This is a popular graphics card model for this type of product, so the manufacturer will compete with other similar solutions.

The MGA1 has an OCuLink 4i connection for communicating between the GPU and the mini PC or notebook, and comes with an HDMI 2.1 output and two DisplayPort 2.0 ports for video. Additionally, it comes with a USB-C 3.1 connection and three USB-A 3.2 connections, at 10Gbps.

In other words, the MGA1 does not offer a Thunderbolt or USB4 port, so the user’s system necessarily needs an OCuLink connection to take advantage of the external Radeon RX 7600M XT.

This can be considered a disadvantage compared to the Ayaneo dock, recently announced with the same GPU. Furthermore, the competitor offers an M.2 connection for storage expansion via SSD, something that is not present in the MGA1.

Minisforum’s solution, however, may attract attention due to its price and availability. Ayaneo’s competitor only arrives in November this year, for US$599 (R$3,447), while the MGA1 is already on sale in the USA, costing US$559 (R$3,217).

Minisforum Dock brings external Radeon GPU to its mini PCs

The proliferation of mini PCs has greatly encouraged the appearance of external docks for GPUs such as the MGA1. Minisforum is one of the manufacturers with the most products of this type, so it seems that the company made its new dock with a Radeon RX 7600M XT thinking mainly about its own solutions.

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Last week, in fact, the manufacturer finally made the official announcement of the EliteMini AI370, revealing its price. This is one of the first mini PCs with a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, which means it has a Radeon 890M as integrated graphics. At $1,400, most users might not want to use an external GPU on this small PC.