First AirJet-equipped mini PC tested, Zotac's new ZBox has an incredibly thin chassis with N300 CPU

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By Matthew Connatser
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AirJet is pretty cool.

zotac zbox pi430aj with airjet
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Zotac's ZBox PI430AJ mini PC is the first computer to use Frore System's fanless AirJet cooler, and as tested by HKEPC, it's not a gimmick. Two AirJet coolers were able to keep Intel's N300 CPU below 70 degrees Celsius under load, allowing for an incredibly thin mini PC with impressive performance.

AirJet is the only active cooling solution for PCs that doesn't use fans; even so-called liquid coolers still use fans. Instead of using fans to push and pull air, AirJet uses ultrasonic waves, which have a variety of benefits: lower power consumption, near-silent operation, and a much thinner and smaller size. AirJet coolers can also do double duty as both intake and exhaust vents, whereas a fan can only do intake or exhaust, not both.

Equipped with two of the smaller AirJet Mini models, which are rated to cool 5.25 watts of heat each, the ZBox PI430AJ is just 23.7mm thick, or 0.93 inches. The mini PC's processor is Intel's low-end N300 Atom CPU with a TDP of 7 watts, and after HKEPC put the ZBox through a half-hour-long stress test, the N300 only peaked at 67 C. That's all thanks to AirJet being so thin and being able to both intake and exhaust air.

For comparison, Beelink's Mini S12 Pro mini PC with the lower-power N100, which has a TDP of 6 watts, is 1.54 inches thick (66% thicker than the ZBox PI430AJ). Traditional fan-equipped coolers just can't match AirJet coolers in size, which is perhaps AirJet's biggest advantage.

Mini PCs aren't the only application that AirJet coolers would excel in. though. Mobile devices like laptops and tablets could possibly also ditch fans for AirJet and reap the benefits that Zotac's latest ZBox has. For higher-power chips, there's the AirJet Pro which can cool 10.5 watts of heat each. AirJet has even made it into datacenter storage, indicating that it's not just for low-power CPUs and could be used for a variety of components that produce heat.

Matthew Connatser
Matthew Connatser

Matthew Connatser is a freelancing writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes articles about CPUs, GPUs, SSDs, and computers in general.

22 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Bluoper
    I'm really exited to see this used in ultra thin laptops to give them a bit of extra horse power.
    Reply
  • gg83
    Is the N300 a good example to use? Can it run hot under load without active cooling? It's about time we used other tech to move air, and eliminate the need for liquid.
    Reply
  • usertests
    gg83 said:
    Is the N300 a good example to use? Can it run hot under load without active cooling? It's about time we used other tech to move air, and eliminate the need for liquid.
    I think it's the best they can do right now. One AirJet Mini can handle 5W, two can handle 10W. Source: https://www.froresystems.com/blog/the-worlds-first-mini-pc-with-airjet-r-has-arrived-with-features-youd-never-expect
    They claimed in one interview that they intend to scale the capabilities with newer process nodes. I hope it's widespread soon enough to see use in things like a Steam Deck 2.
    Reply
  • TechLurker
    It'll be interesting if the performance scales up enough to implement on a larger macro scale; such as some sort of "120mm/140mm replacement" that can suction air through radiators/fins and exhaust it 90% off to a side, top, or rear panel (which most modern cases currently have vents on).

    Beyond that, I'd actually like to see this integrated into mobo cooling; both chipsets, VRMs, and NVMe, adding some much-needed airflow across fins and heatsinks in lieu of tiny 40mm fans.
    Reply
  • wr3zzz
    gg83 said:
    Is the N300 a good example to use? Can it run hot under load without active cooling? It's about time we used other tech to move air, and eliminate the need for liquid.
    That's what I am thinking too. Intel 7W TDP is specifically for passively cooled notebooks so AirJet is kinda pointless. Can't they put 3 chips to cool the mainstream 15W TDP ultrabook CPU? Or is there not enough surface space to fit 3 chips or 2x2?
    Reply
  • bit_user
    gg83 said:
    Is the N300 a good example to use?
    It is, if you don't simply drink the Intel cool aid. Remember, this is the same company claiming the i9-14900K runs at 125 W.

    gg83 said:
    Can it run hot under load without active cooling?
    It'll hit 20 W, easily.

    Granted, this review is for the N305 (TDP: 15W), but should give you an idea of how flexible these numbers really are.
    https://minixpc.com/blogs/review/beelink-eq12-pro-review-worlds-first-mini-pc-with-core-i3-n305-processor
    With a little trouble, I managed to use Google Translate to decode the power chart, at the bottom:

    Application Scenario
    Average Power (W)

    Noise (dB)
    Standby/router
    9.9

    N/A
    Online video playback (4k)
    13.3
    36.7
    Game (Genshin Impact)
    24.9
    39.9
    CPU fully loaded
    40.5
    41.6

    Okay, so that's a "15 W" N305 running at up to 40.5 W. Need I say more?

    gg83 said:
    It's about time we used other tech to move air, and eliminate the need for liquid.
    This is at the wrong end of the spectrum, for that.

    As an aside, liquid cooling isn't going anywhere. Air-cooling still has limits, assuming you don't want to sit next to something sounding like a jet engine. Yes, there are air-cooled servers which dissipate kW of heat via air, and you'd have to use hearing protection to be around them all day.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    TechLurker said:
    It'll be interesting if the performance scales up enough to implement on a larger macro scale; such as some sort of "120mm/140mm replacement"
    I think the economics of scaling it up are rather poor.

    TechLurker said:
    Beyond that, I'd actually like to see this integrated into mobo cooling; both chipsets, VRMs, and NVMe, adding some much-needed airflow across fins and heatsinks in lieu of tiny 40mm fans.
    High-end devices with modest cooling requirements will certainly get this treatment. We've already seen them on M.2 SSDs, for instance.

    As for motherboards and fans... it's hard for me to see how you can really beat a fan, in terms of price, performance, or reliability. The only way I'd be sold on these is if they have some sort of property for combating dust build-up, because that's a perennial weakness of fans. However, in all the coverage I've read of these coolers, I don't recall seeing the manufacturer mention dust even once. If they were somehow more resistant to dust-buildup, I'd expect them to be crowing about it. Perhaps it'll turn out to be their Achilles heel, instead!
    Reply
  • usertests
    bit_user said:
    It'll hit 20 W, easily.

    Granted, this review is for the N305 (TDP: 15W), but should give you an idea of how flexible these numbers really are.
    Alder Lake-N is unusual in that Intel decided not to publish turbo TDPs, which it had done as a new policy with all the other Alder Lake chips over a year earlier.

    N300 has the lower 7W "TDP" (N50, N100, and N200 have a slightly lower 6W "TDP"). N305 also has the "configurable TDP-down" of 9W.

    Here's an N300 review showing similarly high power consumption, maybe because PL1 is set at 10W and PL2 at 25W:

    https://liliputing.com/ikoolcore-r2-review-a-3-inch-mini-pc-with-four-2-5-gbe-ethernet-ports-and-up-to-intel-core-i3-n300/
    Powered off (shutdown)* – 2.6 Watts
    UEFI (BIOS) – 13.9 Watts
    GRUB menu – 15.4 Watts
    Idle – 10.0 Watts (Ubuntu)
    CPU stressed** – 29.5 Watts (Ubuntu “stress”)
    Video playback*** – 27.2 Watts (Ubuntu Chrome 4K60fps)
    Proxmox – 12.6 Watts (No VMs)
    Proxmox (firewall) – 16.1 Watts (pfSense VM)
    Proxmox (gaming) – 33.4 Watts (pfSense VM & Batocera VM)

    Reviews that compare power consumption and benchmark performance of the Zotac with AirJet against other N300 or N305 systems with fans should settle the matter of cooling superiority.

    bit_user said:
    The only way I'd be sold on these is if they have some sort of property for combating dust build-up, because that's a perennial weakness of fans. However, in all the coverage I've read of these coolers, I don't recall seeing the manufacturer mention dust even once. If they were somehow more resistant to dust-buildup, I'd expect them to be crowing about it. Perhaps it'll turn out to be their Achilles heel, instead!
    This was addressed in interviews and articles. They use dust guards over inlets (and outlets?), and the much higher pressure created by AirJet allows it to suck air in fast enough to work. It is supposedly dustproof. If you were to damage the dust guards, perhaps the results would be catastrophic for the vibrating membranes inside AirJet.

    https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/23/23733592/frore-airjet-zotac-mini-desktop-pc-zbox-pi430aj-price
    Reply
  • bit_user
    usertests said:
    They use dust guards over inlets (and outlets?), and the much higher pressure created by AirJet allows it to suck air in fast enough to work. It is supposedly dustproof. If you were to damage the dust guards, perhaps the results would be catastrophic for the vibrating membranes inside AirJet.
    Thanks. I must've missed that. I'll be keenly interested in seeing how well those actually work, in practice.

    Even if they successfully manage to keep dust out of the device's active parts, how quickly do they clog up and what then? It would be clever if they could temporarily reverse the direction of airflow, in order to unclog them.
    Reply
  • DavidC1
    bit_user said:
    Okay, so that's a "15 W" N305 running at up to 40.5 W. Need I say more?
    This is what the review says: "However, the power consumption value of 40W will only last for about 10 seconds, and then it will decrease and remain stable at 30W. around the level."

    Also, 30W is system power, not CPU power. 30W-10W = 20W load, and even that's not entirely CPU power. 15W is very accurate in this case. Lilputing's tests also show the same thing. 33.4W peak and 10W idle = 23.4W. Higher idle power will result in higher load power because there are fixed power users.

    Those are still assumptions. Accurate CPU power is only shown by using monitoring applications. My Yoga 710-11 uses 0.6W for CPU while system is at 3.8W at idle. Certainly 3.8W isn't CPU!

    The sustained performance of E series are very stable, unlike the Core lineup: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-N100-performance-debut-Beelink-Mini-S12-Pro-mini-PC-review.758950.0.html
    The stress test shots also show the CPU rigidly adheres to the set TDP settings. There's no concern here.

    This is another system with PL1/PL2 of 15/25W, but only reaches 15.8W at max: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Geekom-MiniAir-12-review-An-affordable-mini-PC-with-an-Intel-N100-and-DDR5-RAM-in-a-well-known-Intel-NUC-design.771494.0.html
    Load Maximum = 30W. Compare that figure to other laptops. 30W is a very low figure. The M3 Pro macbook uses 73W at max, which is similar to a 13700H using Iris Xe. Unlike most other systems where Load Max and Load Sustained varies substantially, this particular system increases by less than 5%. the M3/13700H goes from 40-ish watt to 70W+.

    Desktops are different as you have a practically unlimited cooling budget with heatsinks heavier than an entire laptop, and the mobo manufacturers set PL1=PL2.
    Reply