Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN970 - Best Compact Gaming Desktop?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
2,079 words · ~10 min read
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Building a fairly compact, super powerful system with like a GTX 980 and
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a miniITX case is kind of fashionable right now. But there's a whole other
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class of machine that's smaller than what can be built using offthe-shelf
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components. The issue is that with these
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systems, you get less customizability and in some cases like we experienced
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with this really small Gigabyte bricks micro PC, heat management can be a real
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problem if desktop class GPUs are integrated into such a design. So, Zotac
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is taking a bit of a middle ground approach with their new Zbox Magnus
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EN970 compact gaming desktop. At only
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about 20 cm long and wide and about 5 cm
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tall, it's small, but not so small that
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it seems like it'll melt the minute you fire up Battlefront. But does it hold
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up? I guess we'll find
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out. If you already know about Loot Crate, go sign up for the October crate
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at the link in the video description. And if you don't, stick around till the
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end of the video to check out our unboxing of the September Summon Crate
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with items from Pokémon and Hearthstone. So, let's start with a look
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at the Magnus' specs. At the heart of this tiny PC is an Intel Core i5 5200U
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processor running at 2.2 GHz with a turbo boost speed of up to 2.7 GHz. For
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graphics, you get a desktop class NVIDIA
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GeForce GTX 960 with 3 GB of GDDDR5
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VRAM. And well, okay, you don't get a whole lot else. This is a barebones kit,
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meaning that you get no storage, no RAM, and no operating system included, but
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it's got two 2 and 1/2 in SATA 3 6 GB per second bays and an M.2 slot. For
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RAM, you will need laptop style sodium memory. It's got two memory slots with
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official support for up to 16 GB of RAM. Although we were able to install 32 gigs
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of this fancy pants highdensity stuff that we got from intelligent memory a
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little while back. Not the first time we fit tons of RAM into a tiny PC. You can
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check out that video here. Now, moving on to the outside. The chassis itself
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has an, I'd say, unassuming, but personally appealing look that would fit
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in well either on your desktop or in your living room as a console
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replacement. The front panel features a power button that lights up in orange
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when you turn the system on. And you'll also find two USB 3 ports, headphone and
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microphone jacks, and an SDXC reader for high-capacity cards. The back panel has
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two more USB 3.0 no ports as well as two USB 2 ports, four HDMI outputs, 2 GB
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Ethernet ports, an antenna connector for the built-in wireless AC Wi-Fi, and of
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course, a power connector for the included 180 W power brick. While
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another type of display output such as DisplayPort would have been nice to
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see, at least these are HDMI 2.0 ports,
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meaning that you can get 4K at 60 Hz as
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long as you have a compatible monitor or television. I wouldn't try to game at
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that resolution, mind you, on the GTX 960 anyway, but those connections could
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still be useful if you wanted to use a box like this for other less intensive
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tasks at high resolution, whether it's web browsing or office work or whatever
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the case may be. For accessories, you get a screw and Wi-Fi antenna, the
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aforementioned power brick, and drivers on a CD.
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Although, since the Magnus doesn't include an optical drive, you'll either
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need to dig out an external optical drive if you want to get into that CD,
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or you could just use the also included readonly USB stick. Thumbs up for that
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one. Installing our RAM and SSD was a
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breeze. The bottom panel comes off quite easily with a couple of thumb screws,
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revealing the two drive bays and RAM slots. our test SSD, a Samsung 850 Pro,
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installed with a very simple toolless plastic mounting system that snapped
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right onto the drive. From there, it was just a matter of inserting the SSD
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directly into the SATA ports and securing it with another thumb screw. It
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was one of the easiest SSD installations that I've ever done and will allow you
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to get up and running in a matter of minutes. And remember that these bays
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also support 2 and 1/2 in mechanical drives if you're more into that sort of
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thing, giving you the capability to throw an M.2 two SSD and then up to two
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high-capacity hard drives in here. So, now let's have a look at some
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performance numbers though, just to see how capable the little Magnus is.
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Although, we were a little concerned that a desktop GTX 960 would thermal
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throttle due to being in such a small case, our gaming results were actually
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very good. We ran three games at 1080p, starting with Crisis 3 on high settings
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with anti-aliasing and motion blur turned off, and the Magnus delivered a
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very solid 63 frames per second average. Moving on to Tomb Raider, we got 54 FPS
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with everything maxed out and FXA enabled. And finally, we achieved 38 FPS
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on The Witcher 3 on high settings, again with AA and motion blur off. Aside from
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FPS numbers though, we wanted to keep an eye on our GPU's core clock speed to see
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if it was throttling in spite of the solid performance. And Zotac clearly did
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a solid job with his cooling solution with our GTX 960 running smooth at 1038
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MHz during both our Crisis 3 Skybox stair load test as well as a Firmark
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stress test at 1080p with MSAA cranked up. While that clock speed is about 90
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MHz lower than NVIDIA's reference GTX 960, you can still expect a solid and
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consistent gaming experience with the Magnus at normal room temperature. And
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speaking of temperatures, the Core i5 5200U maintained an average core
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temperature of a very reasonable 70° C throughout the ID to 64 system stress
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test with no thermal throttling either. What's really impressive in addition to
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that though is that the system stayed nearly whisper quiet even during our
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most strenuous tests with John standing right next to it during testing and kind
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of having to get pretty close in order to hear it even after turning off the
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room's air conditioning. Our review unit also scored good marks for power
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consumption or lack thereof. So, even though the included power brick is rated
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for 180 watts, we didn't come close to
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hitting that during testing with idle power consumption at a mere 21 watts
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going up to 34 watts in IDA and 84 watts
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in Firmark and only 100 watts during the Crisis 3 load test. I mean, seeing as
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there are full-fledged desktop rigs that consume close to that while idle, this
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is a big plus if you're an eco-conerned individual who's worried about power
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draw. We also put the system through a couple synthetic benchmarks to get a
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feel for its non-gaming performance. It scored 255 in Cinebench, uh 7438 in
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Windzip, and uh okay. Although these
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numbers are just fractions of what you'd expect to get with a desktop Core i5 or
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Core i7, they are respectable when you consider that the i5200U is a low power
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part and it only has two physical cores
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with four threads. So, watch out for
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that because while I wouldn't have recommended doing any kind of heavy
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rendering or like super intensive video editing on a system like this anyway,
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some games don't cooperate well with two
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cores or less. So, your mileage may vary
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in terms of the long-term usability of the system for gaming, which I guess
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leads us pretty well into the conclusion. I don't really have anything
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negative to say other than there's a slightly weird pickled vegetable smell
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that uh was kind of detectable when it was first open, but none of that showed
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up during uh during testing. Anyway, and
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I guess, okay, I guess if there was something to complain about, cost is a
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bit of a tough pill to swallow on this one because
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$800 is pretty steep for a barebones machine, especially when you compare it
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to what you could build in terms of a fully equipped traditional desktop. But
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if you can stomach the price, the solid 1080p performance, the thermal
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management, and superb acoustics make
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the Zbox Magnus an interesting choice for anyone who wants a bigger than it
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looks gaming experience in a tiny lightweight
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package. So, if you don't know what Loot Crate is, basically it's a basically
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basically it's a monthly subscription box for geeks and gamers as well as pop
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culture afficionados. So, we are going to be unboxing September's Summon Box with the
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October theme being time. It costs less
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than 20 bucks a month and gets you six to eight items, including licensed gear,
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apparel, collectibles, and unique one-of-a-kind items. They guarantee a
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$40 value on each crate. If you sign up before October 19th at 900 p.m., you
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will actually receive the October crate. If not, you'll miss that cutoff and you
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won't get another chance. That crate is gone forever. You'll have to wait for
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the September one. The good news is they're all pretty freaking cool and
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they'll all have different themes. Whether it's like inspired by inspired
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by Star Wars. There we go. We got some Hearthstone gear here. Whether it's
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inspired by Marvel, The Walking Dead, whatever else the case may be, there is
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always cool stuff. So, here we've got a supernatural loot crate car. We've
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actually collected a whole whack ton of them now. And we've got a massive amount
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of cool stuff. Is this like a a
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Simpsons? That is cool. It's like a Simpsons Homer Simpson Buddha thing.
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Anyway, the point is if any of this sounds appealing, you can sign up at
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lootcrate.com/Linus and enter code lionus to save 10% on any new
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subscription. Why is this in
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a youuber lucky? Wow, we got like lots
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more stuff in here. Scratch off with another coin. Oo, claim your free card
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pack. Well, whoever watches this first and claims it first is totally going to
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get it. Yeah, that's right. I am all about the little bonuses for sticking
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around and watching the uh sponsor spots. Right. Right, guys. Actually, I
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think this is the first time I've ever done anything like that, so whatever. But uh what else we got in here? Free
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mobile game. There we go. Oh, yeah. And every month you get like a little uh
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booklet that'll have like uh some articles and some extra extra swag and
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cool stuff like that. And then the box usually folds into some kind of like
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cool diarama scene thing as well. So it's like a cool place to put
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all of your summoning stuff. Now I just want to get this bag
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open. There we go. Look at him. So there
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you go guys. That's lootcrate.com/lininus. This hat is
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awesome. Thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, I think you know what
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to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit the like button, or even
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consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon,
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buying a cool t-shirt like, well, this is a sweatshirt, but whatever. You get
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the point, or with a direct contribution through our community forum. Now that
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you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next. So, normally I tease something we just
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did, but this time I'm going to tease something we're doing soon. I'm going to be running two systems off of a single
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box and gaming headto head. It's going to be amazing. Make sure you're
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subscribed.