Zotac today updated its ZBOX Mini PC. The new offering, the ZBOX Magnus, maintains the Small Form Factor (SFF) design philosophy of previous ZBOX products. Zotac is positioning the ZBOX Magnus for users aiming to tackle demanding creative workloads - but who also enjoy the latest AAA-games.
The ZBOX Maguns' small, 2.54 litre footprint, is sized at just 210mm (8.27in) length; 203mm (7.99in) width; and 62.2mm (2.45in) height. According to the company, "an improved and powerful cooling solution is backed by a full honeycomb ventilation on top, striking the perfect balance between power and thermals in the most compact form factor."
Inside that small footprint and bespoke cooling solution, the ZOTAC ZBOX Magnus (EN173080C) manages to cram in an Intel Core i7-11800H processor (8-core, 2.3 GHz, up to 4.6 GHz Turbo, 45 W TDP) with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 mobile graphics card (packing a GA-104 chip with 6,144 CUDA cores and 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM over a 256-bit bus, 150 W TDP). Obviously the mobility RTX 3080 brings lesser performance than a full, 8,704 CUDA-enabled RTX 3080 would. But in such a small enclosure, the added heat would likely turn into a problem relatively quickly, which is likely the reason why ZOTAC didn't opt for that GPU instead.
The Zotac ZBOX Magnus is available in either a barebones or Windows-ready model. The barebones option leaves the OS, memory and storage up to the user, while the non-barebones Windows (10 or 11) prebuilt can be configured with up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory across its two (2) DDR4-3200/2933 SO-DIMM slots. Storage expansions include a single 2,5" SATA 3 HDD/SSD bay and a pair of M.2 (2230/2242/2280) SSD slots, compatible with NVMe, SATA, or Intel Optane technologies.
When it comes to ports and connectors, the ZBOX offers a number of these in both its front panel:
- 3-in-1 card reader (SD/SDHC/SDXC)
- Microphone input
- 1 x Thunderbolt 4
- 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 port
- Power button and power LED
- Wi-Fi LED, Hard drive LED
While the back panel also features a number of ports:
- 4 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports
- 1 x 10/100/1000 Ethernet
- 1 x Killer 10/100/1000/2500 Ethernet
- Dual Wi-Fi antenna connector
Only the Barebones version of the ZBOZ Magnus if for now listed on Zotac's website. No information on pricing or availability window for either products was made available at time of writing.
