Just look at how tiny this new Zotac ZBox is, it makes the HDMI cable look positively huge and yet can power HDTV and even some light gaming. The current price point seems to be around $200 with deals occasionally available which certainly undercuts lower priced laptops. Inside is a quad core BayTrail Atom Z3735F, 2GB DDR3-1333 and a 32GB eMMC card for storage which runs the full verion of Windows 8. Bjorn3D managed to get this device to play Dirt 2 as well as playing back HDTV from a NAS set up as a Plex server, albeit on a wired connection as the WiFi did not perform very well at all. There were a few kinks in their testing which you can read about in the full review but overall this new ZBox performed rather well for such a tiny little system.
"Zotac is a company with lots of experience when it comes to small PC’s. We have reviewed some of them before and always come away impressed.The little PC we are testing today, and it really is little, is their smallest yet as it quite literally fits in your pocket. Even though it is small it still comes with WIndows 8 and is by all accounts a proper PC. It might not fit all users but it turns out to be a nifty little PC with several interesting use-cases."
Here are some more Systems articles from around the web:
- ECS LIVA Mini PC Kit Review @ Neoseeker
- Habey MITX-6771: Mini-ITX Board With Quad-Core J1900 Bay Trail @ Phoronix
- CyberpowerPC SYBER Gaming Windows Console Review @ Hardware Asylum
- ASRock M8 Z97 Mini-ITX SFF System @ Kitguru
According to Ark, the Z3735F
According to Ark, the Z3735F can only physically use 2GB RAM. 64-bit OS with 2GB RAM? Hmm…
Not in a hurry or anything
Not in a hurry or anything but patiently waiting for a vesa mountable, gsync supporting, Zotac Zbox with a 960m or 970m.
And a 34″ widescreen gsync monitor with a free vesa mount on the back ^^
I’m wondering when they are
I’m wondering when they are gona put a mobile gpu on a NUC. It wouldn’t even. Need to be powerful like a 260m or a 750m
Intel® Atom™ Processor Z3600
Intel® Atom™ Processor Z3600 and Z3700 Series: Datasheet, V.1
Page 92, Chapter 5.
Refreshed seventh generation Intel graphics core with four Execution Units (EUs)— 3D graphics hardware acceleration including support for DirectX*11, OCL 1.2, OGL ES Halti/2.0/1.1, OGL 3.2— Video decode hardware acceleration including support for H.264, MPEG2, MVC, VC-1, WMV9 and VP8 formats— Video encode hardware acceleration including support for H.264, MPEG2 and MVC formats— Display controller, incorporating the display planes, pipes and physical interfaces— Four planes available per pipe – 1x Primary, 2x Video Sprite & 1x Cursor— Two multi-purpose Digital Display Interface (DDI) PHYs implementing HDMI, DVI, Display-Port (DP) or Embedded Display-Port (eDP) support— Two dedicated digital Display Serial Interface PHYs implementing MIPI-DSI support.
Damn Intel, list the graphics version number inside of ARK’s quick reference, or ARE you too embarrassed to admit that your graphics in these Chips is not so great, and sharing that 2 gigs, with M$ OS bloat is not going to help!
You noticed that too, eh?
You noticed that too, eh? Then again, the whole system costs less than many of Intel's processors, so you do need to have reasonable expectations.
Contra revenue expectations,
Contra revenue expectations, that will not last forever, and pricing will get higher if Intel gets too much market share. I can not wait for AMD’s newer offerings next year. I just hope these devices get thin enough, and somebody makes a portable case mod for these devices with one of those USB portable LCD displays, or maybe mods an old laptop body to hold 2 of these type devices. Intel’s graphics on these SKUs are what is loosing it sales, and AMD’s APU SKUs are much better in graphics, as are Nvidia’a Denver/K1 systems graphics. Once AMD gets a custom ARMv8 based APU out there with its graphics, to compete with the Denver based products this pico market will really begin to get going, and hopefully AMD will be offering/supporting SkyBridge enabled Mini/Pico motherboard systems, that could support both x86, and ARM APUs/SOCs, along with better graphics.
Whatever happened to the mint boxes, I was hoping one would show up running the Denver K1 Tegra variant, are the mint box makers still in business?