General Analysis

In general, the ZOTAC MEK1 has a fairly attractive design. Its small form factor makes it a product where interesting design decisions are paired with industry standard parts. The mini-ITX motherboard keeps excessive features and design creep in check. Meanwhile, the use of a 90° PCIe adapter and PCIe extender allow the GPU to be placed in a separate area of the case, one that is thermally independent from the rest of the system. Around the PSU area, things are a bit cramped. There is no real room for extra storage or components. ZOTAC only offers an M.2 slot and an 2.5" drive bay, both of which are already populated. Thankfully, all these are industry standard parts—HDD, M.2 SSD, PSU, GPU, etc. This means the system can be upgraded by the end user, at least to an extent.


As for its outer appearance, it won't be for everyone, but when you turn it on and it all lights up, it's just so damn pretty. The power button is a bright blue hidden behind a smokey translucent plastic door. While the RGB LEDs used to illuminate the rest of the chassis are controllable via ZOTAC's Spectra software, the power button unfortunately is not, which feels a bit like a design oversight since the blue clashes with any other color. If you color match them, however, it looks very nice indeed. Generally speaking, if you like LED illumination, you will probably like how this system looks. If you don't, well, they can be turned off. Still, the vented side panels and angular looks remind me a great deal of the Silverstone Raven cases, but slimmed down and targeted at the "Gaming" crowd. The only real downside software-wise is the limited BIOS. While it's not exactly hard to figure out why, it's limited; I was still hoping to see some overclocking features. Still, considering the target market, it's not a must-have feature here.


CPU performance is good as the Intel i7 7700 gets the job done, offering plenty of performance for today's games and general software, while its 65 W TDP is manageable for such a small enclosure. When it comes to temperatures, the included heatsink with four copper heatpipes and its 92 mm fan proved more than capable of keeping the CPU cool with 88°C recorded in AIDA64's FPU-only stability test. Using a more traditional workload saw temperatures hover in the 80°C range with all cores loaded, which is very respectable. The ZOTAC GTX 1070 Ti and its blower-style cooler also performed admirably. Hot air was exhausted out the back, which kept temperatures in check with the GPU sitting at around 83°C with a total system-wide reading of 45 dBA when pushed to the limit. Under regular gaming loads, both synthetic and real world, the system never exceeded 42 dBA. Keep in mind that noise levels are taken at just 30 cm/12 inches away.


When it comes to gaming, the CPU and GPU proved more than capable of playing all of today's titles maxed out at 1080p with room to spare. All titles played at 60 FPS or higher. Some were in fact CPU limited depending on the situation, including Metal Gear Solid V and Total War Warhammer. Otherwise, the unit delivered superb gaming performance and did so without being obnoxiously loud.

The included keyboard and mouse proved to be surprisingly serviceable. The mouse felt accurate in games like Battlefield 1. It slid effortlessly across the included mouse mat, but some extra weight for a bit more added control would have made it feel a great deal better. When it comes to the keyboard, the Jixian blue switches are okay. They don't quite have the same feel as a Cherry MX blue, but are quite similar. They still performed well, being far superior to any membrane-based keyboard I have used. Unlike the mouse, the keyboard has some serious heft, which is nice as it doesn't move or shift around on the desk and generally imparts a sense of quality even if it's more a placebo effect than anything else. Sadly, neither the keyboard or mouse can be color-matched to the case in terms of LEDs. The keyboard is always blue and the mouse cycles through the RGB spectrum.

I would also like to mention that the system comes in a few different flavors, which include white and black cases and with or without the bundled keyboard and mouse. Sadly, the EMEAI (Europe, Middle East, Africa, and India) will only have non-bundled versions. That said, for regions where the bundle is available, it makes a good jump-off point for getting into PC gaming without worrying about the minor details. Potential consumers unwilling to build a system themselves, especially with the latest mining craze, get a fairly nice deal considering the $1599.99 MSRP.