ZOTAC Announces the ZBOX Magnus ERX480 Gaming Desktop

[btarunr]

ZOTAC International, a global manufacturer of innovation, is pleased to introduce MAGNUS ERX480 as the world's first AMD powered Mini PC equipped with Polaris Architecture. The award-winning ZBOX MAGNUS Gaming Mini PC series, renowned for whisper quiet performance, brings a refreshing level of power and speed for every gamer. "We are always aiming to provide powerful solutions available to a wide audience and the MAGNUS ERX480 could be it" said Jacky Huang, Director of Mini PC.

MAGNUS is designed for gaming and entertainment. Hosting power that surpasses the requirements for experiencing virtual reality, MAGNUS is an ideal solution for both high-end gaming, premium entertainment, and much more. "The Radeon RX 480 with Polaris Architecture changes the gaming hardware dynamic with an effective cost-performance combination. We're excited to partner with ZOTAC, a well-established gaming mini PC manufacturer, to bring together the world first and most powerful AMD based gaming mini PC equipped with a Radeon RX 480" said Spencer Pan, AMD Corporate VP and President of Greater China.



"Small, powerful, and whisper quiet" continues to be the hallmark of the MAGNUS series. An Intel 6th generation Skylake CPU, a dedicated AMD Radeon RX 480 graphics, and DDR4 memory support to generate the power to play even the latest games with intricate details and silky smooth frame rate. MAGNUS ERX480 is VR ready and it can also do more with newer standards. Native 4K output at 60Hz is now standard with DisplayPort 1.3 and HDMI 2.0 and quad display support comes standard to provide a multiscreen experience in one of the tiniest package. Powerful Async shaders and new geometry capabilities enable unique support for DirectX 12 and Vulkan.

DDR4 memory support come standard to provide wider memory bandwidth, faster clock speeds, quicker transfer rates, and lower operating voltage that allows for less power draw and less heat.

The MAGNUS series continue to provide a premium computing experience by taking care of the details. It comes equipped with both USB 3.1 Type-C and USB 3.1 TypeA port for speed and convenience. 802.11ac WiFi connection and dual gigabit LAN support also come standard. Measuring at 8.27 x 7.99 x 2.45 inches (L x W x H), it is one of the smallest VR Ready systems. A matte black finish underlines its power and whisper quiet performance.

MAGNUS ERX480 comes in barebones, PLUS and Windows 10 versions.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Chaitanya]

What cpu is used in that pc? I hope its atleast quad core, it would make a good pc for photoediting.

 

[KainXS]

What cpu is used in that pc? I hope its atleast quad core, it would make a good pc for photoediting.

It has an I5-6400T.

https://www.zotac.com/us/page/magnus-erx480
https://www.zotac.com/us/product/mini_pcs/magnus-erx480#spec

 

[sanadanosa]

Zotac use AMD gpu now? Of course they're already using APUs, but I think this is the first time they use a dedicated AMD gpu.
Are they going to use 1060 too?

Edit: this thing comes with a 180w power brick. That's barely enough to supply the Rx 480 alone.

 

[okidna]

Are they going to use 1060 too?

They already did : https://www.zotac.com/us/product/mini_pcs/magnus-en1060-windows-10

 

[chaosmassive]

I might be wrong
but I thought Nvidia not allow authorized partner to use AMD GPU?

I hope Zotac wont end up like XFX

 

[Sempron Guy]

Zotac use AMD gpu now? Of course they're already using APUs, but I think this is the first time they use a dedicated AMD gpu.
Are they going to use 1060 too?

Edit: this thing comes with a 180w power brick. That's barely enough to supply the Rx 480 alone.

must be the cream of the crop RX-480s.

I might be wrong
but I thought Nvidia not allow authorized partner to use AMD GPU?

I hope Zotac wont end up like XFX

Last time I heard Zotac and Sapphire is affiliated so they could be using cherry picked sapphire RX-480s

 

[Caring1]

It's tempting, but I would like to see comparison benchmark testing between this and the 1060 & 1070 versions.

 

[jabbadap]

I might be wrong
but I thought Nvidia not allow authorized partner to use AMD GPU?

I hope Zotac wont end up like XFX

How about MSI, Asus and gigabyte? And zotac ain't even releasing radeon graphics cards, just a whole computer with radeon on it. And they allready have Zboxes with AMD APUs inside. PC partner(Zotac's parent company) and Sapphire has some common legacy, although they have little common today. PC partner does only nvidia and sapphire only amd. I'm quite interested to see what from factor GPU are there inside this machine. It should be MXM, but there's no RX 480 mxm card out there. Only RX 470.

 

[owen10578]

I might be wrong
but I thought Nvidia not allow authorized partner to use AMD GPU?

I hope Zotac wont end up like XFX

Hold up. If that's the case how the hell is MSI, Asus and Gigabyte still doing business with Nvidia?

 

[efikkan]

So where do you insert the included support DVD?

Options are nice, but no one should choose this one over GTX 1060.

 

[jabbadap]

So where do you insert the included support DVD?

Options are nice, but no one should choose this one over GTX 1060.

And why not? Specs vice they are quite identical, price will be the key. Well of course gtx 1060 will most likely be more powerful(180W power source for both and with current perf/W it's quite no brainier to reason), but for htpc usage neither are really UHD capable and for FHD both are plenty. For UHD GTX 1070 version might just do it, thus little eye candy dropping is still required(And of course it would cost arm and leg compared to the RX480 or GTX1060).

EDIT: Oh for that dvd question usb dvd player, but this thing also include that read-only usb flash drive with same things inside it.

 

[cdawall]

must be the cream of the crop RX-480s.

They are specing them to 95W for the entire PCB to embedded solutions partners.

 

[jabbadap]

Ah, so it's should be same ball park as E9550 MXM. Waiting eagerly benchmarks of this and that Dell Alienware 15" with RX 470, real competition on mobile gaming platforms is more than welcome.

 

[Steevo]

Zotac use AMD gpu now? Of course they're already using APUs, but I think this is the first time they use a dedicated AMD gpu.
Are they going to use 1060 too?

Edit: this thing comes with a 180w power brick. That's barely enough to supply the Rx 480 alone.

RX480 GPU dies have a better yield at Glo-Flo and people have seen them run from 90W for a "good" die up to and past 140W for a poorly binned die. Nvidia has lower yields, but better power characteristics of the dies that are good.

Its also been suggested that AMD is hoarding good dies for OEM's as well, and handing over mostly middle of the road dies for aftermarket board makers, and that is standard industry practice that both companies do so they have chips for Pro graphics, OEM's and other integrated hardware.

 

[chaosmassive]

How about MSI, Asus and gigabyte? And zotac ain't even releasing radeon graphics cards, just a whole computer with radeon on it. And they allready have Zboxes with AMD APUs inside. PC partner(Zotac's parent company) and Sapphire has some common legacy, although they have little common today. PC partner does only nvidia and sapphire only amd. I'm quite interested to see what from factor GPU are there inside this machine. It should be MXM, but there's no RX 480 mxm card out there. Only RX 470.

Hold up. If that's the case how the hell is MSI, Asus and Gigabyte still doing business with Nvidia?

because ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte has one similarity = they also manufacture Motherboard
thats why Nvidia lenient on them with their "Premium Partner" or something like that, so they can get away with making AMD card as well.

if Nvidia treat them same way as the rest of OEM partner(Zotac, Palit, etc)
they might losing SLI ready motherboard as repercussion of Nvidia cut-off

 

[ShurikN]

They are specing them to 95W for the entire PCB to embedded solutions partners.

Plus we already saw desktop RX480s with about 80-90 W power draw. Either the process became better, or AMD cherry-picked these GPUs.

I'm quite interested to see what from factor GPU are there inside this machine. It should be MXM, but there's no RX 480 mxm card out there. Only RX 470.

Tom's reported that it's an MXM 480.

 

[cdawall]

Plus we already saw desktop RX480s with about 80-90 W power draw. Either the process became better, or AMD cherry-picked these GPUs.

It's called binning. They will bin what makes them money until the process gets better. Judging how much the cards have changed in the past couple months I would say the process got better as well. The first batch of cards were junk though and amd never should have released those.

 

[sanadanosa]

RX480 GPU dies have a better yield at Glo-Flo and people have seen them run from 90W for a "good" die up to and past 140W for a poorly binned die. Nvidia has lower yields, but better power characteristics of the dies that are good.

Its also been suggested that AMD is hoarding good dies for OEM's as well, and handing over mostly middle of the road dies for aftermarket board makers, and that is standard industry practice that both companies do so they have chips for Pro graphics, OEM's and other integrated hardware.

I see. Too bad I got this 225w Rx 480 (listed on Sappire's own website) that already fried my old asrock board.
To be honest, I'm not so sure that the graphics card is the one that causing it since the burn mark is closer to the memory slots, but the fact that it happened a week after I bought this Rx 480 and none of my rams died, it's hard to me not to blame the graphics card. Maybe I should turn the Compatibility Mode on to begin with.

 

[cdawall]

I see. Too bad I got this 225w Rx 480 (listed on Sappire's own website) that already fried my old asrock board.
To be honest, I'm not so sure that the graphics card is the one that causing it since the burn mark is closer to the memory slots, but the fact that it happened a week after I bought this Rx 480 and none of my rams died, it's hard to me not to blame the graphics card. Maybe I should turn the Compatibility Mode on to begin with.

It is absurdly doubtful that the video card affected the ram in anyway. The traces don't typically burn on the board the 24P does.