Zotac Zbox EN760 Super Tiny Gaming PC
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,469 words · ~7 min read
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this is a Zotac ZBOX the i760 model more
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specifically it's not the first time I've ever seen one but my early
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experiences with ZBOX just weren't that great the hardware was slow usually
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Intel atom or early AMD Apu based and
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they didn't have decent Graphics so from a gaming perspective they were basically
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irrelevant a global leader in Tech recruiting is celebrating Geek Pride by
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giving away 10 amazing Tech prizes for more info visit the modus Facebook page
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or modus.com step forward a few years and two things
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have happened number one is that Hardware is much more efficient and
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number two is that it's much more powerful so this same form factor I mean
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it really looks almost identical to the old ones can have way cooler and faster
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guts in it so let's get physical with our ZBOX e that's uh for epic Gaming by
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the way series Mini PC overall there are no surprises here it can lay flat it can
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stand uppr right on the included foot and it can be bolted to a Vasa
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compatible monitor or TV with the included adapter also included in the
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box is a couple of antennas for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth a DVI to VGA adapter a
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manual a driver disc which you may actually need because Zotac website is
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so slow and the screws for the vase amount
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for the PC itself we'll start at the front where we've got headphone and
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microphone jacks an SD d card reader a USB 3 Port an IR sensor and a power
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switch a funny thing here is that Zotac couldn't decide which way was up for the
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labels on the front ports it's a minor issue but it's definitely one that made
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me laugh on the right hand side is another usb3 port with a little cover on
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it and a large exhaust vent on the left we find two thumb screws to open up the
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unit and the mount for the foot and then the top is straight smooth glossy
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plastic with an attractive orange LED that you can actually turn off in the BS
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but it's got a very muted glow so I would personally leave it on the bottom
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is the same thing but with a bunch of ventilation holes and no LED and this is
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all for the internal cooling fan I guess there's also four little rubber feet
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here now speaking of cool most of the
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interesting IO is on the back where we find power in our antennas HDMI and dual
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link DVI out two USB 3 ports and optical audio out and finally dual Ethernet
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ports which feels like a very strange inclusion to me I would have preferred a
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mini DisplayPort output or something but maybe next time now hold on a minute
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then normally these kinds of small form factor PCS are tightly integrated and
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difficult to take apart why did this thing have thumb screws over on the side
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with the foot Mount well truthfully you're intended to take it apart it's
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available as a barebones where you put in your own drive and memory or as a
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pre-built that you just install an operating system on so once we get ins
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side we can see the large 6800 Ultra style heat sink that cools a dual core
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Intel Core i5 that runs at 1.6 GHz base
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and up to 2.6 GHz with turbo boost and a
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gtx860m with 2 gigs of RAM here we see
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the included Intel Wireless AC and Bluetooth 4.0 card and finally over here
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we've got the 1 TB hard drive that's included with the pre-built one but can
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be removed if we pull out that one screw to reveal two DDR3 sodium slots one of
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which is populated with an 8 gig module now evaluating the performance of this
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thing could have been as simple as running our suite of games and measuring
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the FPS but I don't think it really would have been fair to a product like
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this I don't see this as a normal PC it's more like a console in terms of
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size and utility so I took a little bit of a different approach using the same
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image quality settings that we found looked the same as a PS4 back when we
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did our image quality comparison with Battlefield 4 and Assassin's Creed
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before we wanted to see if this tiny PC
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a mere 6 months after we did that video could deliver the same gaming experience
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at 1080 as a current gen console and it
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did in fact it was about 10% faster than
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our value gaming PC at the time which was able to achieve the same minimum
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frame rate of 30 FPS that the consoles Target so this one did it quite
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comfortably and it managed to that while being much much smaller than the PC
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smaller than a console and whisper quiet even while gaming I'm really really
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impressed but with that said the en 760
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does cost quite a bit more than a PlayStation 4 so whether it's worth your
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hard-earned money is a pretty tough call and only you can make that decision once
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you've considered the pros and cons it is a great package if you don't mind the
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spend of it the cooling fan is incredibly quiet it's wellb built fully
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featured and Tiny enough to hide behind the TV or pretty much anywhere else so
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it has that g try sex appeal and it's
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fairly likely to achieve spouse approval if you have a process for that in your
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house given that it'll be out of site but the big drawback of course is that
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while you'll have the functionality of a desktop like a lot more versatility than
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a console you won't get the upgradeability or customizability of a
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true desktop PC so there you have it
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guys I love that Zotac had the guts to
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build something like this and I hope it's a massive success because given
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what they can jam in a notebook these days there is obviously more powerful
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Hardware that could make its way into this kind of a form factor if the demand
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was strong enough but with steam in home streaming finally available
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theoretically we don't even need gaming machines on our TVs anymore but it's
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hardly perfect so especially if I had some DDR 3 or 2 and a half in Drive
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lying around this epic Gaming series would likely be getting a look from me
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if nothing else even if I didn't end up going for it and I went for a very low
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powerered just streaming box with an h264 decoder but guys let me know your
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thoughts are powerful gaming boxes hooked up to TV's dead or do you like
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the direction Zotac is going here or would you prefer just a larger one in
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audible.com Linus and as usual guys the
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link for pricing and availability of this product is in the video description
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he