Gaming Notebooks Compared

One of the most common comments posted in response to mini-PC reviews is that the value proposition of an equivalent notebook is much higher than that of the PC. While there are plenty of factors that might make this comparison invalid, we thought it would be interesting to see how the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080K fares against premium gaming notebooks. Towards this, we borrowed a few benchmarks from our notebook reviews and processed them on the EN1080K. In the graphs below, we also have the gaming mini-PCs on which the benchmarks were processed. First, we will look at some artificial benchmarks before moving on to the games themselves.

3DMark Revisited

Futuremark 3DMark (2013)
Futuremark 3DMark (2013)
Futuremark 3DMark (2013)
Futuremark 3DMark (2013)
Futuremark 3DMark (2013)
Futuremark 3DMark 11

GFXBench

GFXBench 3.0 Manhattan Offscreen 1080p
GFXBench 3.0 T-Rex Offscreen 1080p

Dota 2

Dota 2 Reborn - Enthusiast

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Shadow of Mordor - Enthusiast

The takeaway from these results is that the performance of the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080K and the EN1080K is beaten only by the Clevo desktop replacement (DTR) notebook that uses the same GPU, but, with a 91W Core i7-6700K, instead of the 65W Core i7-7700. This gives the Clevo DTR an edge in the benchmarks that also depend on the CPU performance.

Gaming Benchmarks Networking and Storage Performance
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  • Sane Indian - Tuesday, January 2, 2018 - link

    Why Mini PCs cost more than a Laptop or proper desktops?
    https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/predator-mod...
  • TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, January 2, 2018 - link

    Because it is even MORE tech, more power hungry, with more cooling then any laptop, in a smaller space, with a smaller market?
  • DanNeely - Tuesday, January 2, 2018 - link

    Even lower production volumes than laptops, meaning each sale has to cover a larger chunk of the total R&D budget.
  • nerd1 - Tuesday, January 2, 2018 - link

    It does NOT cost more than equivalent laptop (7700 and GTX 1080)
  • Rookierookie - Tuesday, January 2, 2018 - link

    On Newegg, a Clevo laptop with i7-8700K, GTX 1080, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD+1TB HDD goes for $2449. So pretty darn close.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Tuesday, January 2, 2018 - link

    "free" keyboard, mouse, display included with the Clevo, as well. And the thinner profile more easily fits into a backpack or carrying bag, as opposed to a cube-like shape.
  • cosmotic - Wednesday, January 3, 2018 - link

    At least the zotac doesn't look like a tragedy like the Clevo.
  • Death666Angel - Wednesday, January 3, 2018 - link

    The Zotac EN1080K goes for 1910€ in Germany. Cheapest 1080 laptop is and ASUS ROG with a 6700HQ, 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM. 6-core 8700 based Schenker Laptop (Clevo rebrand) goes for 2820€. The Zotac with 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM is 2200€, plus OS, so maybe 2250. But for that I would bet you get better cooling and much better IO options. Sure, you lose the built in display and peripherals, but they serve different use cases. If you want a luggable, portable solution, why look at this thing. If you want a stationary thing that is out of the way, why look for a laptop with a large footprint.
  • Flunk - Wednesday, January 3, 2018 - link

    It's mostly because the Clevo is enormous. You pay for the engineering to get something this small.
  • Flunk - Wednesday, January 3, 2018 - link

    This is also a bit of boutique system, they're not going to sell many of these.

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