Hong Kong-based Zotac is known for making some of the most desirable compact computers on the market, and at Computex it reaffirmed its commitment to diminutive desktops. But it also launched its biggest PCs ever, with its new MEK brand.
Here are the details, plus four more mini PCs I saw at their booth on Tuesday.
Zotak MEK: Little tower PCs
The first Zotac PC on this list is actually relatively large. The MEK is a Mini-ITX designed tower PC (it can only stand up and can’t be laid flat) and it comes packing some impressive internals. The model on display at Computex came equipped with Intel’s latest quad-core Core i7-7700 alongside one of Zotac’s own tiny GTX 1080 Mini graphics cards. There’ll be NVMe-based SSDs, two DDR4 RAM slots and a tiny 450W SFX-form-factor PSU. They come in both white and black, and the LED strips will be customisable come launch. Expect to see these before Christmas.
Zotac ZBox MA551: A Ryzen-powered multimedia box
The MA551 certainly isn’t the most exciting looking PC Zotac’s built, and it’s also quite a lot larger than its previous efforts. However, this living room PC comes with an as-yet undecided mid-range AMD Ryzen CPU, two DDR4 memory slots for up to 32GB of RAM, six USB 3.0 ports and a front-mounted card reader. If you fancy an Intel machine instead, the MI553 is identical but has kit from the Blue Team instead.
Zotac ZBox PI225: A PC the size of a battery pack
This is Zotac’s smallest PC yet. It’s a tiny thing powered by Intel’s latest N3350 “Apollo Lake” Atom processor. You It’s powered over microUSB and can connect to a 4K display via one of its two USB-C connectors. It’s just 10 x 6 x 8cm in size, so be careful not to lose it down the back of your sofa.
Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1050: eSports mini PC
Zotac launched its GTX 1060-powered EN1060 at least year’s Computex, and now the company is bringing the price down with one that comes with a cheaper, less powerful GTX 1050 on board instead. Zotac is trying to get the price into the region of £600, although whether that’s possible remains to be seen.
Zotac Zbox Magnus ER1060 Gaming: A big mini gaming PC
Zotac has modified its higher-end Zbox machines, getting rid of the more expensive MXM-based graphics chips and instead using their own tiny graphics cards connected via a more standard PCIe connector, as you’d find in a regular PC.
From the outside it makes no difference and you can’t really see evidence of the PCIe graphics chip unless you look around the back for the video out ports. The older models were liquid cooled, but with the switch to PCIe, there’s a single fan instead.
Are compact PCs your bag? Let us know what your ultimate mini desktop would be.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.