Maxtang reveals compact mini PC with China-made 4-core CPU

Maxtang is a pretty well-known entity in the realm of mini PCs aimed at industrial and enterprise workloads. The brand has now introduced a new mini PC in China, sporting a China-designed CPU.

The mini PC, dubbed the FX1400, comes equipped with the Haiguang 14XX (1400 Series) chip that is designed to serve industrial control and edge-computing workloads, designed by Chinese semi company Hygon.

Unlike the x86 CPUs that we know and love, the aforementioned mini PC's Haiguang 14XX utilizes Hygon's proprietary C86 instruction set. The 15-watt chip features a total of 4 cores clocked at up to 3 GHz, and is compatible with DDR4 and DDR5 RAM.

Being a CPU targeted primarily at industrial use, the processor is designed to support 24x7 operation, and can survive temperatures ranging between -40° C and 105° C

Of course, a bunch of China-specific encryption algorithms are supported (SM2, SM3, SM4). Virtualization support is present. Other supported features include secure startup, RTOSs (Real-Time Operating Systems), EtherCAT, Modbus, MQTT, OPC UA, and other standards commonly used in industries.

The FX1400 mini PC itself is not all that interesting, feature a very basic design that is characteristic of products aimed at industrial use. A total of six USB-A, dual Ethernet, 3.5 mm audio, VGA and HDMI ports are present. Storage is handled by a single M.2 2280 slot.

The mini PC measures in at around 20.8 x 19 x 4.5 cm, which is roughly 8.1 x 7.4 x 1.7 inches, indicating a volume of around 1.778 liters.

Pricing and availability 

Any concrete details regarding pricing or availability are unclear as of this writing, although it can be said with a fair degree of certainty that the mini PC won't be launched outside of China.

Typical consumers looking for a capable mini PC, can therefore checkout something like the GMKTec M6 Ultra (currently $689 on Amazon) equipped with 32 GB RAM and an arguably better-known AMD Ryzen 5 APU.