Introduction

Blending in with their bigger competitors as if they had always been there, Zotac has been around for a while now. However, they are newer to the industry than you might expect, having been established in 2006. In that short twelve-year span, they have grown to become an industry juggernaut that offers a range of products, including graphics cards, desktops, and mini-PCs. Continuing to push the envelope of what consumers can expect, Zotac has placed themselves in a solid position that allows for not only expansion but continued innovation. In general, Zotac will continue to be a force in the PC gaming market.


In today's review, I look at the brand new Zotac ZBOX CI660 nano barebones mini-PC. The barebones model is currently not available in the US. However, the Plus model, which includes 4 GB of memory and a 120 GB SSD, will be. With that out of the way, the system is passively cooled and comes packing an 4c/8t Intel Core i7-8550U, which should offer more than enough processing power to get actual work done. That said, the system as reviewed is a barebones unit and as such, system memory and storage are up to the end user to provide. This means the final specs will depend on one's budget, which will have performance vary as well. I will be testing the CI660 nano with Patriot Signature Line 2x8 GB (16 GB) DDR4 SODIMMs running at 2133 MHz. The OS drive and storage will be handled by a Crucial 250 GB MX500 SATA SSD. With specifications like this, I expect to see solid performance, but before we get to that, let us take a closer look at the system itself.