At the start of the year, we heard of Zotac’s announcing its ZBOX Magnus EN-Series Mini PCs. Launching on July 12th, these mini-PCs will feature the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 GPUs and Intel Tiger Lake-H CPUs and are already up for pre-order in a few selected markets including Japan. The prices start at 1500 USD.
Let us take a look at the three variants in Zotac’s lineup of mini PCs. The ZBOX E series MAGNUS EN173080C features Intel’s Core i7-11800H CPU and NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU. Moving on, the ZBOX E series MAGNUS EN173070C comes equipped with the same CPU from Intel but features a different GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile GPU. Last but not the least, the entry level ZBOX E series MAGNUS EN153060C features Intel’s Core i5-11400H CPU and NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 GPU.
Getting more into the detail of these GPUs, the RTX 3080 is powered at 150W and the RTX 3070 is powered at 125W. The details of the TGP on the RTX 3060 are still not available but will be understandably lower as its featured on the entry level system. It is important to note that these are mobile variants so the performance will not match those of the desktop counterparts. These will be featuring cut-down GPUs and will have lower lock speeds. Despite this, considering the small form factor of the Zotac Zbox, the performance is truly remarkable and matches any basic gaming needs.
Despite the abundance of 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs in the market, Zotac is still sticking to the 11th Gen Tiger Lake CPUs for the ZBOX Mini PCs even though the Alder Lake can provide better performance. We are hoping that a future variant might come out which features the Alder Lake but so far, the company might have had to stick to the 11th Gen Tiger Lake.
