ZOTAC ZBOX MAGNUS EN980 Gaming Mini PC (ZBOX-EN980-U)

Ive had this box for close to a year now in a couple of months. I have to say that I am completely satisfied with this little guy. Everything on it works. I had made my own PCs for years and these days it gets old making your own thing. I jumped on this because 1) it was small and 2) I really didnt have to do anything to set it up. Pop the top cover, put in the SSD, add the RAM, its a sinch. It might be important to say that I got this box as an MMO/LAN party type PC, and it has been a great experience. PROS: - Small Form Factor - No hassle - Low power - No Driver issues - Accessible ports CONS: - Runs hot (to be expected, it is a small form factor running a pretty great graphics card) - No true path to upgrade outside of basic hardware - Cost (again to be expected, as this has two factors going into the price, form factor and prebuilt) Again, I got this for (mainly) my mmo playing. I can move it around, it can sit on my desk and not be in the way in the slightest. Knowing that MMOs will generally run lower graphics, and for a much longer period of time, this box just made sense to me. I really enjoy products that are small and pack a punch, and this box definitely delivers. If you want top end gaming, this box isnt for you. If you want to upgrade over the years to keep up with the top end gaming scene this box isnt for you. If you like no hassle setup for a heavy duty MMO box, this box is definitely for you. I have an ASUS MX27AQ 27" WQHD AH-IPS running at 2560x1440 attached to this box with zero issues when gaming. I have this type of monitor because I also have it attached to my Mac as a secondary screen for when working and drawing. Not sure if its worth noting, but this is also the only PC ive had where the sleep function on Windows doesnt screw something up for me. If you know what youre paying for, and you really like this box, I highly recommend it. I no longer have the want/need to go and buy parts and build something new, so you are definitely paying for a convenience with this machine. Theres some assembly required with the Barebones box, and OS installation, but it was such a quick and easy process its hardly worth mentioning. Thank you, Zotac, for a great product and experience.

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The device works as advertised; Ive been able to play AAA games from this year on it without a hitch. I was also able to upgrade the memory and replace the 1 TB HDD with an SSD without any problems. Its a nice tradeoff between the GTX 1080 model (which will require a bigger box b/c the power / cooling needs for that are insane) and portability / size.

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This machine has just enough oomph to let you play games on your living room TV with settings cranked up. The older the game, the higher the visual flair you can push. For steam games, specially indies, its great for 4K gaming. Since TVs arent the most friendly devices to configure, specially HDR ones, you can make this the ultimate HTPC if you dedicate enough research time to the TV to buy and the configuration of the video and audio output. Slap some 16GB ram + an SSD and youll have a speedy device.

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Going in I was looking for a windows PC with a small form factor, relatively quiet (under normal operation) with as much horsepower as would fit into a small package. For the price I think its essentially impossible to get a cheaper, more powerful box in such a small and quiet package. That said - it is certainly not quiet under the load of most modern games - upon purchase the noise was almost deafening but after some research it appears that Zotac overtunes their fans out-of-the-box and so a firmware update later, and even under gaming load the noise is reasonable. Over all I have loved the box, it has performed exceptionally, and I have recommended the brand to multiple friends who have also had great experiences. pros: compact, powerful, good value, reliable cons: no upgrade path, loud out of the box, could be prettier (note that for my needs these were non-factors)

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Just got this a week ago, working great so far! Gets consistent 60 fps playing Skyrim with 290 active mods, high res texture packs, and maximum graphics settings all around. Doesnt even get noisy or overly hot when doing so. Will update later if anything changes. There are cheaper and equally powerful options out there, but nothing compares to this tiny form factor. This thing is barely bigger than my wifi router, and totally unobtrusive. If you need something small and are okay paying about $200 extra for the size, this is your box. I highly recommend the GTX 1060 version.

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Bought right under usd$500, with a i5 6400 and gtx 980(mxm card, but is full spec 2048cuda cores), it got a gtx 1060-ish performance, considering the fact that it is just 500 bucks, that is preety great. By the way, it is a mini itx pc, so tiny yet manage to not thermal throttel, in 100% load in games, it usually sits somewhere 60 to 70 °C. Worth noting that it only support one m.2 sata(NOT NVME), one sata3 2.5 inch hdd/ssd, and 2 ddr3L memory slot(the laptop kind).

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I use this little computer as a mobile demo PC for VR. It works great for that, and even some light Unity work. Ive played many games at high detail settings with major skipping issues. Very affordable alternative to VR ready latptops. I added a 500gig SSD and 32Gb RAM (which was maybe a little overkill). I bought a USB-C Hub to expand extra ports for keyboards, mice, controllers, etc. I definitely recommend for making your VR rig mobile without breaking the bank.

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