Zotac has been a pioneer in bringing compact small form-factor (SFF) machines to the market proper because the ION days. The introduction of the ZBOX EI750 in 2014 marked the start of Zotac’s foray into the SFF gaming PC section. With the burgeoning marketplace for compact techniques (kickstarted by the success of the Intel NUC initiative), Zotac has additionally grown from energy to energy. The firm now has round eight totally different mini-PC households focusing on totally different segments. The ZBOX E collection (E initially stood for ‘EPIC GAMING’, earlier than changing into the extra arcane ‘Enthusiast’ in recent times) caters to the gaming crowd and is marketed beneath the MAGNUS tag. The first mini-PC on this collection, the ZBOX EI750, used the eDRAM-augmented CrystalWell elements in 2014. The MAGNUS EN970 launched in 2015 was Zotac’s first try at integrating a discrete GPU board into the mini-PC form-factor.
Gaming mini-PCs have all the time needed to cope with tradeoffs by way of processor TDP, GPU TDP, and PSU integration. Almost the entire early gaming mini-PCs concerned re-imagining a gaming pocket book motherboard in a desktop form-factor – MXM GPUs and sub-45W TDP processors have been the norm. Intel’s gaming-focused Enthusiast and Extreme NUCs have been upping the ante on this division, and Zotac has additionally been as much as the problem. The firm’s present flagship is the ZBOX MAGNUS ONE (launched on the 2021 CES). Coupling a desktop Comet Lake CPU with a desktop nVIDIA Ampere GPU, it guarantees loads of gaming prowess. This evaluation takes a take a look at the efficiency and worth proposition of the top-end ZBOX MAGNUS ONE mannequin – the ZBOX-ECM73070C-W2B.
Introduction and Product Impressions
Zotac’s E-series mini-PCs have loved nice success within the gaming mini-PC market, prompting the corporate to usually replace the lineup with the most recent and biggest CPUs and GPUs. Tracing the historical past of Zotac’s flagship E-series techniques, we discover totally different tradeoffs utilized between the CPU TDP, GPU TDP, and PSU. Higher TDP parts have usually carried a premium price ticket to accommodate a liquid cooling resolution, prompting the corporate to experiment with air-cooled techniques to broaden the market attraction with decrease pricing. The particulars of the gaming flagships in every technology are listed under:
- 2014 ZBOX EI750: CrystalWell (65W TDP for CPU + built-in Iris Pro GPU), 120W exterior energy brick
- 2015 ZBOX MAGNUS EN970: Broadwell-U 15W TDP CPU + 100W TDP GTX 970M, 180W exterior energy brick
- 2016 ZBOX MAGNUS EN980: Skylake-S 65W TDP CPU + 180W TDP GTX 980, 2x180W exterior energy bricks
- 2016 ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080: Skylake-S 65W TDP CPU + 180W TDP GTX 1080, 2x180W exterior energy bricks
- 2017 ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080Ok: Kaby Lake-S 65W TDP CPU + 180W TDP GTX 1080, 2x180W exterior energy bricks
- 2018 ZBOX MAGNUS EK71080: Kaby Lake-H 45W TDP CPU + 180W TDP GTX 1080, 330W exterior energy brick
- 2019 ZBOX MAGNUS EN72080V: Coffee Lake-H 45W TDP CPU + 150W TDP RTX 2080 Mobile, 330W exterior energy brick
- 2020 ZBOX MAGNUS EN072080S: Comet Lake-H 45W TDP CPU + 150W TDP RTX 2080 Super Mobile, 330W exterior energy brick
- 2021 ZBOX MAGNUS ONE: Comet Lake-S 65W TDP CPU + 220W TDP RTX 3070, 500W inside PSU
Between the MAGNUS EK71080 and the MAGNUS ONE, Zotac began focusing extra on the content material creators market with their high-end E-series models. The flagship Inspire Studio sported a 65W TDP Coffee Lake-S CPU and a 175W TDP RTX 2060 SUPER, with a form-factor just like that of the MAGNUS EK71080. The EN72080V and EN072080S have been primarily based on the thinner EN970 form-factor. The 2021 MAGNUS ONE thus marks Zotac’s robust return to the SFF gaming market with a correct desktop CPU and GPU.
Zotac equipped us with an engineering pattern of the high-end MAGNUS ONE SKU – the ZBOX-ECM73070C-W2B. It sports activities the Intel Core…
