{"id":651987,"date":"2026-06-07T13:25:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T11:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=651987"},"modified":"2026-06-07T13:52:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T11:52:46","slug":"new-on-device-ai-monster-pc-the-size-of-a-book-shows-up-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/hardware\/651987-new-on-device-ai-monster-pc-the-size-of-a-book-shows-up-in-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"New on-device AI monster PC the size of a book shows up in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Veriton RA110 AI Mini Workstation has emerged on a South African version of the official Acer website<\/a>. The machine was revealed by the Taiwan hardware maker last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the size of a hardcover book, the RA110 was introduced as Acer\u2019s new flagship mini workstation and is geared for on-device AI training and any other activities that require enormous processing power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the RA110, users looking for similar processing power offered by the upcoming machine would have to build or buy a mid-tower or full-tower PC with a dedicated GPU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At just 4.7 cm tall and 16 cm wide, the device\u2019s hardware can run AI models with up to 200 billion parameters per system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could run enterprise-grade AI models that would normally require the same processing power of data centre servers, right on your desk and still be small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acer said that the RA110 was designed for developers, product engineers and creative professionals who need to run agentic and generative AI locally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would also suit those who need to render 3D models, animations, or other design work, as well as content creators who need to render hours of video footage in a short time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Veriton RA110’s processing power is centred on the AMD AI Max+ 395 processor. AMD fused three different processing components onto a single chip to fit massive power into a small chassis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It combined a Ryzen CPU with a Radeon 8060s integrated GPU and a specialised NPU to run 126 trillion operations per second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At these speeds, a 3D designer could render complex, realistic lighting in real time while sculpting models, or see everyday coding assistants answer prompts near-instantly offline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside the AI Max+ processor, the RA110 features 4-channel LPDDR5X RAM up to 128GB and up to 2TB of SSD storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connectivity-wise, it comes with an RJ45 Ethernet port, Wi-Fi 7 support, and Bluetooth 5.4, which are standard features for these types of machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acer South Africa told MyBroadband that the Veriton RA110 AI Mini Workstation would launch in the Middle East and Africa region in the third quarter of 2026, potentially between July and September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The local Acer team did not share any news about an exact local launch date or pricing, as the global announcement was too recent, representatives said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do know that, thanks to the global memory crisis<\/a>, older AI Max+ mini PCs in South Africa are currently priced above R60,000, with some even crossing R80,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new challenger approaches<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Apple’s Mac Studio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Acer\u2019s Veriton RA110 workstation launch locally would challenge Apple\u2019s most powerful workstation PC available in South Africa, the Mac Studio with the M4 Max processor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Veriton is smaller and lighter than the Mac Studio, but it offers superior performance to Apple\u2019s machine, at least the latest locally available configuration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa, the iStore sells the 14-core CPU version of the M4 Max Mac Studio, with a 32-core GPU. It also has a 16-core NPU with 410 GB\/s of memory bandwidth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both machines combine all three processing components into a single processor, which means it experiences little to no data transfer lag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a typical desktop, the CPU processes a data prompt and must send it to the NPU, resulting in a back-and-forth data copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both devices are adept at running high-intensity creative work and on-device AI processes, but where the Mac stands out is in its thermal design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe thermal system is designed to let you fly through intensive tasks at incredible speeds while keeping Mac Studio quiet, so it never interferes with your workflow,\u201d iStore said about the machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, RA110 owners will hear a noticeable hum from the workstation\u2019s thermal system, especially under heavy load. The Mac Studio is currently priced at R49,499. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

RA110 vs Mac Studio M4 Max spec shootout<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Feature \/ Specification<\/th>Mac Studio M4<\/th>Acer Veriton RA110<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Processor (CPU)<\/strong><\/td>Apple M4 Max chip<\/td>AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395<\/td><\/tr>
Graphics (GPU)<\/strong><\/td>32-core integrated GPU (Hardware-accelerated ray tracing)<\/td>AMD Ryzen AI Max Series integrated graphics<\/td><\/tr>
AI Processing (NPU)<\/strong><\/td>16-core Neural Engine<\/td>AMD Ryzen AI Engine <\/td><\/tr>
Memory (RAM)<\/strong><\/td>36GB Unified Memory (iStore)<\/td>Up to 128GB LPDDR5X Four-channel Memory<\/td><\/tr>
Storage<\/strong><\/td>512GB SSD (iStore)<\/td>Up to 2TB M.2 2280 SSD Storage<\/td><\/tr>
Front I\/O Ports<\/strong><\/td>2x USB-C ports (up to 10Gb\/s), 1x SDXC card slot (UHS-II)<\/td>SD card reader, audio jack, two USB 4 Gen 3 Type-C ports.<\/td><\/tr>
Rear \/ Main Ports<\/strong><\/td>4x Thunderbolt 5 (up to 120Gb\/s), 2x USB-A (5Gb\/s), 1x HDMI 2.1, 10Gb Ethernet, 3.5mm headphone jack<\/td>RJ45 Ethernet port, video outputs, built-in fingerprint reader, Kensington lock slot<\/td><\/tr>
Wireless<\/strong><\/td>Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax), Bluetooth<\/td>Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4<\/td><\/tr>
Display Support<\/strong><\/td>Supports up to 5 external displays<\/td>Not specified<\/td><\/tr>
Operating System<\/strong><\/td>macOS (with Apple Intelligence capabilities)<\/td>Windows (Copilot+ PC feature set)<\/td><\/tr>
Dimensions<\/strong><\/td>9.5 cm (H) x 19.7 cm (W) x 19.7 cm (D)<\/td>4.7 cm (H) x 16 cm (W) x 16 cm (D)<\/td><\/tr>
Price<\/strong><\/td>R49,499<\/td>N\/A<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acer’s Veriton RA110 AI Mini Workstation was revealed on a local website, potentially threatening Apple’s mini PC status in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":651993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2006,96999,105713,105714,577,105716,77106,105715,105712],"class_list":["post-651987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","tag-acer","tag-acer-south-africa","tag-ai-max","tag-ai-max-395-processor","tag-amd","tag-lpddr5x-ram","tag-mac-studio","tag-ssd-storage","tag-veriton-ra110-ai-mini-workstation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651987"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651987"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652587,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651987\/revisions\/652587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}