Minisforum has confirmed that a new version of the MS-02 Ultra mini workstation is on the horizon. The device was showcased as part of the CES 2026 exhibition, promising to deliver more powerful performance thanks to an unannounced processor from Intel. This upgrade comes only about six weeks after the global launch of the device, which was initially available with Core Ultra 5 235HX, Core Ultra 7 255HX, and Core Ultra 9 285HX processors from the Arrow series. Lake-HX.
The company has updated the new device to take advantage of the Core Ultra 9 295HX processor, the existence of which Intel has not yet publicly acknowledged, and while Minisforum is committed to secrecy about the exact changes compared to the current 285HX processor, expectations based on previous performance indicate that this processor belongs to the upcoming Arrow Lake HX Refresh series, and is likely to receive a boost in clock speed at a minimum.
Although the new device has not been listed in the store yet, most of the original features will return in this version, including two USB4 V2 ports and a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot for graphics card expansion, but for an unclear reason, the 25 Gbps Ethernet feature that was present in the 285HX variant appears to be missing in the new Core Ultra 9 295HX update.
