MSI introduced the Cubi 3 mini computer in June, featuring a fanless design and support for laptop-class, 15 watt Intel Kaby Lake-U dual-core chips.
Now the company is preparing to launch a bigger, more powerful model called the Cubi 3 Plus. It’s not fanless, and it’s not quite as compact. But it supports up to a 65 watt Intel Core i7-7700U quad-core processor.
Oh, and it uses a 5×5 STX board with an LGA1151 socket, which means the processor can be upgraded or replaced.
While MSI hasn’t announced a price or release date for the United States yet, the computer is up for order in Taiwan, where an entry-level model with a Celeron G3930 processor, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of M.2 SSD storage, and Windows 10 is selling for about $427.
There are also several more powerful configurations available:
The US prices (and maybe configurations) are likely to be a bit different if and when the computer goes on sale in the United States.
Each model features an M.2 SSD slot, a 2.5 inch drive bay, 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2, a 3.5mm audio jack, HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort, and VGA ports, three USB 3.1 Type-A ports, a USB 3.1 Type-C port, two USB 2.0 ports, and a Gigabit Ethernet jack.
I haven’t found the exact dimensions of the MIC Cubi 3 Plus, but the computer is said to weigh about 3.4 pounds.
via Sinya Forum and MiniMachines
So much CPU, so little RAM. Seems like an interesting little computer, sans the pre-configured memory choice.
What about HDMI-CEC support?
Now make it half as thick and twice as wide and stuff it inside a keyboard like in the Commodore days.
So much CPU horsepower and so little GPU options; integrated is fine if they had gone with a laptop CPU with Iris Plus graphics instead.