Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN970 Review - A Gaming mini-PC Done Right
by Ganesh T S on September 28, 2015 8:00 AM ESTNetworking and Storage Performance
We have recently started devoting a separate section to analyze the storage and networking credentials of the units under review. On the storage side, one option would be repetition of our strenuous SSD review tests on the drive(s) in the PC. Fortunately, to avoid that overkill, PCMark 8 has a storage bench where certain common workloads such as loading games and document processing are replayed on the target drive. Results are presented in two forms, one being a benchmark number and the other, a bandwidth figure. We ran the PCMark 8 storage bench on selected PCs and the results are presented below.
The OCZ Vector drive we used in our setup has been EOL-ed by OCZ, but there are plenty of similarly performing drives with similar costs in the market.
On the networking side, we restricted ourselves to the evaluation of the WLAN component. Our standard test router is the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk configured with both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. The router is placed approximately 20 ft. away, separated by a drywall (as in a typical US building). A wired client (Zotac ID89-Plus) is connected to the R7000 and serves as one endpoint for iPerf evaluation. The PC under test is made to connect to either the 5 GHz (preferred) or 2.4 GHz SSID and iPerf tests are conducted for both TCP and UDP transfers. It is ensured that the PC under test is the only wireless client for the Netgear R7000. We evaluate total throughput for up to 32 simultaneous TCP connections using iPerf and present the highest number in the graph below.
In the UDP case, we try to transfer data at the highest rate possible for which we get less than 1% packet loss.
The numbers are similar to what we obtained for other systems with the Intel AC-3160 WiFi 802.11ac PCIe WLAN card. The external antenna helps in provideing better performance.
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aj654987 - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
It would perform better with a 35 or 45 watt haswell desktop processor but they probably went U series because it also takes up less space being soldered on the motherboard and significantly less heat at 15 watt. So its all a trade off.Rick540 - Sunday, October 4, 2015 - link
Why not just buy a decent laptop for that price and connect it to your TV? Then you'd have a laptop to carry around when you need it. Looks like all that is anyway is a laptop in a computer case.Teknobug - Monday, October 5, 2015 - link
Exactly, for nearly $1000 you can get a good laptop that can be used anywhere and still be hooked to the TV or monitor with keyboard/mouse as your main PC if you want, and most laptops around that pricetag has an i7 or high end i5 processor rather than the moderate performing U variant.CknSalad - Monday, October 5, 2015 - link
Hopefully zotac releases a 35/45w skylake cpu. I really don't like the i5-5200U cpu that comes with it. If it had a 35/45w skylake cpu, this would be a really good portable PC.Wolfpup - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Huh. HUH. So really this is sort of like Alienware's Alpha? But with a better GPU and worse CPU? And similarly has a user replaceable hard drive slot and RAM?This thing looks very very interesting as a possible notebook replacement for me in the future. Cheaper than the equivalent power in a notebook, I think. Hmm...
Wolfpup - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
I'd like a quad CPU though...stick a 45 watt CPU in something like this and we'd be in business...I mean make it bigger if need be, I don't care...Haravikk - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
What's the idea behind the 4x HDMI ports on this? The article and specs don't mention any as being inputs (which would be handy for passthrough) so why so many outputs? I could understand two as it would give the option of having one for video and one for audio, or for two screens, but are there many people planning to run four screens off of a box like this?It seems decent enough, but still far too expensive for what you get IMO, even accounting for the small size.
mikato - Wednesday, October 28, 2015 - link
This isn't quite what I'm going for but I do like seeing more of these mini PCs. Keeping them coming!Here's what I want:
-Mini PC that normally sits by my TV for HTPC purposes, but is dead simple to bring to a friend's house
-HDMI, DisplayPort
-Integrated graphics on CPU - no discrete wanted since this will not be used for heavy gaming, only light gaming. AMD APUs fit the bill with stronger CPU than this for faster multipurpose usage and plenty strong graphics for any kind of video playing, streaming, light gaming. Also price is decent.
-Big hard disk (I like SSDs better too, but I want to chuck all my media on this thing so I can bring it anywhere, and play it on anybody's TV. I probably won't bother trying to use a small SSD for OS like I do in my other machines.)
-quiet (duh)
-power efficient (duh)
-midrange laptop price? I'm willing to build my own if there is a nice mini PC case around.
-Not required- Bluray/DVD - Like this Zotac box, I decided to not require this since support on computers is bad. Windows removed it (I think). OS X didn't have it. You can't make HD Blurays of your own videos that actually play (basically). So I'll just stick with media files and streaming... and I do have a Bluray player anyway. It would be sweet to include it and consolidate one more living room item, but no biggie.