AMD’s Ryzen 7 7745HX “Dragon Range” processor is a mobile chip that offers performance that rivals many desktop processors, with a 55 watt default TDP, 8 Zen 4 CPU cores, and 40MB of total cache.
So while the chip was designed for gaming laptops and mobile workstations, MINISFORUM figured it’d be a pretty good solution for high-performance mini PCs. But rather than put inside a chassis, the Chinese mini PC maker has released the MINISFORUM BD770i mini-ITX motherboard with Ryzen 7 7745HX processor, letting you build your own computer around the chip. The B770i board is available now for $399.
Since the Ryzen 7 7745HX processor is not a socket chip, it’s attached to the motherboard the same way it would be soldered to a laptop mainboard. That means it’s not user-replaceable.
But the board still offers plenty of other features that allow you to build a custom PC, including two M.2 2280 slots with support for PCIe 5.0 x4 SSDs, a PCI 5.0 x16 slot for a GPU or other accessories, two SODIMM slots for up to 64GB of total DDR5-5200 dual-channel memory, an M.2 2230 slot for a wireless card, and header for up to three fans (for the CPU, SSD, and chassis).
External ports include:
- 1 x 2.5 GbE Ethernet
- 1 x HDMI 2.0
- 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
- 1 x USB4 Type-C (with DisplayPort 1.4 Alt Mode)
- 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
- 2 x USB 2.0 Type-A
- 1 x 3.5mm mic input
- 1 x 3.5mm line audio input
- 1 x 3.5mm audio out
MINISFORUM says the system can support up to three 4K displays, but notes that there are some limitations to this mainboard. Not only is it impossible to replace or upgrade the processor, but there’s no official support for overclocking, and fan speed adjustments can only be made from the UEFI/BIOS settings menu, not using Windows software.
We may also see a higher-performance board with a Ryzen 9 7945HX or Ryzen 9 7945HX3D chip in the future – the company showed off a board with the former processor at Computex in June, and revealed a compact desktop computer with the latter chip in August. Neither of those is available for purchase yet though.
