Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS ONE SFF Gaming PC Review: Desktop Comet Lake Charges Up with Ampere
by Ganesh T S on August 13, 2021 10:00 AM ESTSetup Notes and Platform Analysis
The motherboard in the MAGNUS ONE uses a H470 PCH. The CPU's integrated GPU display output (HDMI 1.4a) is also available in the rear panel. The RTX 3070 Twin Edge features four display outputs, and either set can be active for up to four simultaneous display streams. The PC also includes Killer AX1650 Wi-Fi and dual LAN ports (1x 1Gbps + 1x 2.5Gbps) as noted in the specifications table in the previous section.
The Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS ONE sports a redesigned GUI for its BIOS. The use of the H470 PCH and a non-overclockable CPU mean that the BIOS doesn't need a ton of enthusiast features. The video below presents the entire gamut of available options in the system's BIOS.
The AIDA64 system report for the hardware configuration supplied by Zotac provided the following information:
- [ North Bridge: Intel Comet Lake-S IMC ]:
- PCIe 3.0 x16 port #2 In Use @ x16 (nVIDIA GA104 - High Definition Audio Controller, Zotac RTX 3070 Twin Edge OC Video Adapter)
- [ South Bridge: Intel Comet Point-H H470 ]:
- PCIe 3.0 x4 port #9 In Use @ x4 (Phison PS5013 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe 1.3 SSD Controller)
- PCIe 3.0 x1 port #13 In Use @ x1 (Killer E3000 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet Controller)
- PCIe 3.0 x1 port #14 In Use @ x1 (Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Adapter)
- PCIe 3.0 x1 port #15 In Use @ x1 (Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650x 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (200NGW))
A pictorial representation of the internal bus structure in relation to the external ports is presented below.
All the USB ports in the system are off a single root hub in the PCH. The SDXC card reader is enabled by a Realtek USB 2.0 card reader, and is restricted to a maximum speed of around 40 MBps practically (no UHS-II support). The audio jack is backed up by a Realtek ALC269 audio codec. Though there are plenty of USB ports to go around, the DMI bottleneck means that it might be difficult to get simultaneous peak performance from more than a couple of ports at a time. All the networking I/Os are also off the PCH, and all the 16 PCIe lanes off the processor are dedicated to the GPU (as it should be in the case of a gaming PC).
In the table below, we have an overview of the various systems that are being compared against the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS ONE. Note that they may not belong to the same market segment. The relevant configuration details of the machines are provided so that readers have an understanding of why some benchmark numbers are skewed for or against the MAGNUS ONE when we come to those sections.
| Comparative PC Configurations | ||
| Aspect | Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS ONE (ECM73070C) | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-10700 | Intel Core i7-10700 |
| GPU | ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 3060 12GB GDDR6 Intel UHD Graphics 630 |
ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 3060 12GB GDDR6 Intel UHD Graphics 630 |
| RAM | Crucial CT16G4SFS832A DDR4-3200 SODIMM 22-22-22-52 @ 3200 MHz 1x16 GB |
Crucial CT16G4SFS832A DDR4-3200 SODIMM 22-22-22-52 @ 3200 MHz 1x16 GB |
| Storage | Phison E13 Reference Design (Zotac-sourced) (500 GB; M.2 Type 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe; Kioxia 96L 3D TLC) (Phison E13 Controller) Seagate BarraCuda ST1000LM048 (1 TB; 2.5in SATA 6Gb/s) |
Phison E13 Reference Design (Zotac-sourced) (500 GB; M.2 Type 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe; Kioxia 96L 3D TLC) (Phison E13 Controller) Seagate BarraCuda ST1000LM048 (1 TB; 2.5in SATA 6Gb/s) |
| Wi-Fi | Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650x | Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650x |
| Price (in USD, when built) | $2400 (pre-built with Windows 10 Home x64) | $2400 (pre-built with Windows 10 Home x64) |
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Samus - Sunday, August 15, 2021 - link
I'm surprised nobody has pointed out the obvious here: this thing looks better than a PS5\XBOXX while actually being smaller and more powerful. Sure it costs more but it isn't like you can actually but a PS5 or XBOXX for MSRP anyway...lemurbutton - Sunday, August 15, 2021 - link
Most people do get the PS5/XSX at MSRP. This thing is 4.8x more expensive.Threska - Sunday, August 15, 2021 - link
More closely resembles a fat Motorola Cable Modem.Spunjji - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link
"looks better than"Hmmm, I'd argue it's about the same at best? YMMV
"more powerful"
Certainly, but -
"it costs more"
As lemurbutton pointed out, it costs 4.8x more - and it's not 4.8x more powerful.
To me the comparison looks pretty favourable to the console, unless you have a specific need for a PC.
Oxford Guy - Sunday, August 15, 2021 - link
‘Overall, the system has an effective thermal solution, but that comes at the cost of fan noise. For a gaming mini-PC with a 220W TDP GPU, that is to be expected.’I see buttons for Temperatures and Power but no data about decibels (noise pollution), such as decibels-per-watt, peak noise, etc.
Since fan noise is to be expected, one would expect to be able to know how much there is of it, in order to decide if it’s worth having in order to obtain the often dubious benefit of a somewhat smaller case.
Also, does the slow RAM (in terms of the latency being 22) operate in single channel mode?
twotwotwo - Sunday, August 15, 2021 - link
With apologies for some shameless brand cheerleading, I'd love to see a similar "essentially prebuilt" SFF Ryzen option with dGPU; even a weak or past-gen dGPU could fit the non-APU chips into a smaller form factor. Retail-available APUs no longer lag the CPUs as much as they did between the Matisse launch and the 5x00G release, so maybe the difference is less dramatic now, but it's still a seemingly unfilled niche.easp - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link
I keep thinking this is a Motorola cable modem, circa 2014, when I see the hero picture for the article.aj654987 - Thursday, August 19, 2021 - link
I normally dont care much about looks of cases but for $2400 it should look cooler than this. This looks like those giant router/modem combo boxes the ISPs use, its ugly.noident - Tuesday, August 31, 2021 - link
Got this one as a barebone (1420 EUR Magnus One, + 70 EUR for 16 Gigs and 130 EUR for 1TB Samsung M2) This PC really performs as expected. The best thing is I just can put it on the desk so the child will not fiddle with any funny lights (very decent design with that glowing ring).The downside is the noise though. Since I'm playing with headphones it doesn't really bother me but taking off the headphones during gaming is like realizing you just disembarked from an airplane. Zotac should do something about the CPU and PSU fan.