14 DAY TRIAL // As far as mini PCs go, probably very few of them can really be considered to be built for games. And those that are actually targeting gamers are extremely expensive and they carry impressive brand names like Corsair or Steam.
However, there are some that do not carry the weight of a gaming brand to enhance their sales and inflate their price but provide quite similar performance. Enter ZOTAC and its ZBOX Magnus EN970 gaming mini-PC. ZOTAC is actually quite known for manufacturing graphics cards and mini-PCs, and now it has ramped up the gaming power by building the MAGNUS EN970.
Although simple and minimalistic in design, it, in fact, carries the power of a true gaming laptop. Equipped with a 5th gen Intel Core i5 CPU and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 with 3GB GDDR5 VRAM graphics card, this little mini PC has the firepower of a Steam Machine. In fact, what's even more impressive is that ZOTAC placed inside every bit of hardware it has on its own ZOTAC Steam Machine, but unlike the Steam Machine it's equipped with a GTX 960 instead of a GTX 970M.
It has everything a gamer needs, but how about the price?
Additionally, the MAGNUS EN970 has RAID-ready storage setup that allows really fast access speeds and real-time mirroring protection. The aspect side of the new ZOTAC mini PC is the minimalistic black matte design that makes everything compact and even somewhat portable. From now on, if you plan on getting this beast to some friends to start a LAN party, the new ZOTAC mini PC can keep up with the looks and the performance as well.
Apparently, ZOTAC sells the new MAGNUS in a PLUS version as well, which gets 8GB of memory pre-installed together with a 120GB M.2 SSD that will bring blazing fast booting and gaming performance speeds.
The Mini PC is easily upgradable with an easily accessible SO-DIMM ram slots and 2.5" HDD/SSD slots for further customization. In case any extra peripherals are needed, the devices can be connected to a plethora of 4xUSB 3.0 and 2xUSB 2.0 slots. Display-wise, this small beast will play your 4K entertainment like it's nothing via its 4xHDMI 2.0 ports.
TechPowerUp, unfortunately, does not disclose any price asked by ZOTAC for this very interesting mini PC. However, we can imagine it will probably cost at least $600 compared to other similar gaming mini-PCs on the market.
