Gaming systems and small form-factor (SFF) PCs have emerged as bright spots in the desktop PC market that has been subject to severe challenges recently. Many vendors have tried to combine the two, but space constraints and power concerns have ended up limiting the gaming performance of such systems. Zotac, in particular, has been very active in this space with their E-series SFF PCs. Earlier this year, Zotac's engineers came up with an innovative chassis and thermal design to cram a desktop class processor and a high-end discrete desktop GPU into a SFF chassis. The system still retained the limited configurability that consumers have come to expect from such systems.

Despite being innovative and unique, the motherboard features of the first generation product - the ZBOX MAGNUS EN980 - betrayed the time spent by Zotac in perfecting the other parts of the system design. However, after getting the product out, Zotac has been quick to iterate. The second-generation product - the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 that we are reviewing today - apparently fixes many of the shortcomings pointed out in our earlier review. The specifications of the EN1080 indicate that it can take advantage of all the modern features of the Skylake platform. There is a CPU upgrade from the 65W Core i5-6400 to the Core i7-6700. More importantly, we move from the Maxwell-based GTX 980 to the Pascal-based GTX 1080. On paper, this has resulted in a premium Skylake PC that can handle the latest and greatest workloads thrown at it. It is fitting that the release of this compact, yet, ultra-powerful rig coincides with Zotac's 10-year anniversary. In this review, we will take a look at the performance of the system and also determine the areas where Zotac can improve in the upcoming products in this lineup.

Introduction

Zotac's ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 makes its appearance in the market within a few months of its predecessor, the ZBOX MAGNUS EN980. The claims for both systems are essentially the same - a powerful VR-ready gaming mini-PC that is equipped with a high-end desktop CPU and GPU. In terms of physical footprint, the EN980 and EN1080 are the same (5.85L / 225 mm x 203 mm x 128 mm ). Putting a high-end desktop CPU and GPU in that form factor with a liquid cooling system is technically impressive, and we have given the chassis and cooling system enough praise in the ZBOX MAGNUS EN980 review. The EN1080 retains the industrial design of the EN980. In fact, the only difference in the external appearance of the chassis is the addition of a HDMI port in the front panel. Internally, there is a bit of fancy LED lighting (controllable via the Spectra utility) that can spruce up the power button and the logos on the top and sides of the chassis.

In addition to the main unit, the PC package also includes two 180W (19.5V @ 9.23A) power bricks along with US power cords and two WLAN antennae. A quick start guide with installation instructions for the memory and disk drives, a user manual and a read-only USB key with the drivers round up the rest of the package, as shown in the gallery below. There are a few miscellaneous items (such as a 'do not disturb' door-tag with the Zotac logo) promoting Zotac's 10-year anniversary.

We received the barebones version of the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080. In order to complete the build, we used two 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 SODIMMs and a 512GB Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD. The Corsair SODIMMs can operate at up to 2667 MHz, but, in the EN1080, they are capped at 2133 MHz. The Toshiba OCZ RD400 has no such issues, and operates with the full PCIe 3.0 x4 bandwidth. Note that OCZ's custom NVMe driver is needed to obtain the best performance out of the SSD.

The specifications of our review configuration are summarized in the table below.

Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 Specifications
Processor	Intel Core i7-6700 Skylake-S, 4C/8T, 3.4 GHz (Turbo to 4.0 GHz), 14nm, 8MB L2, 65W TDP
Memory	Corsair Vengeance CMSX32GX4M2A2666C18 DDR4 14-15-15-31 @ 2133 MHz 2x16 GB
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB GDDR5x)
Disk Drive(s)	Toshiba OCZ RD400 (512 GB; M.2 Type 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe; Toshiba 15nm; MLC)
Networking	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 (1x1 802.11ac - 433 Mbps) 2x Realtek RTL8168 Gigabit LAN
Audio	3.5mm Headphone Jack + 3.5mm Microphone Jack Capable of 5.1/7.1 digital output with HD audio bitstreaming (HDMI)
Miscellaneous I/O Ports	4x USB 3.0 2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 (1x Type-A + 1x Type-C) 1x SDXC Card Slot
Operating System	Retail unit is barebones, but we installed Windows 10 Pro x64
Pricing (As configured)	$2000 (barebones) $2505 (as configured)
Full Specifications	Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 Specifications

Buy Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 on Amazon.com

Since the MAGNUS EN980 has been reviewed thoroughly, it first helps to have a detailed comparison of the specifications of the EN980 and EN1080. The important differences are reproduced below (in the EN1080 vs. EN980 format)

• Intel Core i7-6700 vs. Intel Core i5-6400
• 2x DDR4 2133 SO-DIMM slots vs. 2x DDR3L 1600 SO-DIMM slots
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (w/ 8GB GDDR5x) vs. NVIDIA GeFore GTX 980 (w/ 4GB GDDR5)
• 2x DisplayPort 1.3 vs. 2x DisplayPort 1.2
• 3x HDMI 2.0 vs. 2x HDMI 2.0 (the extra HDMI port of the EN1080 is in the front panel, though both units support only four simultaneously active displays)
• M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 / SATA SSD slot vs. M.2 SATA SSD slot

Internally, the EN1080 uses the B150 chipset (compared to the H170 used in the EN980). However, given the configurability options (only the DRAM and SSD / HDDs are left to the end user to complete the hardware configuration), the choice of chipset really doesn't matter. Obviously, if Zotac were to go back to the specifications stage and look into more peripherals I/Os based off PCIe bridges, the B150's limited number of high-speed I/O lanes might be problematic.

In terms of the audio codec (Realtek ALC892), Wi-Fi (Intel AC3165), LAN controllers (2x Realtek RTL8168), USB 3.1 controller (ASMedia ASM1142), and the SDXC card reader (Realtek-based USB 2.0 bridge), the EN980 and the EN1080 are the same.

In the table below, we have an overview of the various systems that we are comparing the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 against. 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 Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 when we come to those sections.

Comparative PC Configurations
Aspect	Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080	Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080Intel NUC6i7KYK (Skull Canyon)ASRock VisionX 471DSYSmark 2014 SE Calibration SystemGIGABYTE GB-BNi7HG4-950Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN970Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN980
CPU	Intel Core i7-6700	Intel Core i7-6700
GPU	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8 GB)
RAM	Corsair Vengeance CMSX32GX4M2A2666C18 DDR4 14-15-15-31 @ 2133 MHz 2x16 GB	Corsair Vengeance CMSX32GX4M2A2666C18 DDR4 14-15-15-31 @ 2133 MHz 2x16 GB
Storage	Toshiba OCZ RD400 (512 GB; M.2 Type 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe; Toshiba 15nm; MLC)	Toshiba OCZ RD400 (512 GB; M.2 Type 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe; Toshiba 15nm; MLC)
Wi-Fi	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 (1x1 802.11ac - 433 Mbps)	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 (1x1 802.11ac - 433 Mbps)
Price (in USD, when built)	$2000 (barebones) $2505 (as configured)	$2000 (barebones) $2505 (as configured)

Performance Metrics - I

The Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 was evaluated using our standard test suite for gaming mini-PCs. Not all benchmarks were processed on all the machines due to updates in our testing procedures. Therefore, the list of PCs in each graph might not be the same. In the first section, we will be looking at SYSmark 2014 SE, as well as some of the Futuremark benchmarks.

BAPCo SYSmark 2014 SE

BAPCo's SYSmark 2014 SE is an application-based benchmark that uses real-world applications to replay usage patterns of business users in the areas of office productivity, media creation and data/financial analysis. In addition, it also addresses the responsiveness aspect - the user experience as related to application and file launches, multi-tasking etc. Scores are meant to be compared against a reference desktop (the SYSmark 2014 SE calibration system in the graphs below). While the SYSmark 2014 benchmark used a Haswell-based desktop configuration, the SYSmark 2014 SE makes the move to a Lenovo ThinkCenter M800 (Intel Core i3-6100, 4GB RAM and a 256GB SATA SSD). The calibration system scores 1000 in each of the scenarios. A score of, say, 2000, would imply that the system under test is twice as fast / better as the reference system.

SYSmark 2014 SE also adds energy measurement to the mix. A high score in the SYSmark benchmarks might be nice to have, but, potential customers also need to determine the balance between power consumption and the efficiency of the system. For example, in the average office scenario, it might not be worth purchasing a noisy and power-hungry PC just because it ends up with a 2000 score in the SYSmark 2014 SE benchmarks. In order to provide a balanced perspective, SYSmark 2014 SE also allows vendors and decision makers to track the energy consumption during each workload. In the graphs below, we find the total energy consumed by the PC under test for a single iteration of each SYSmark 2014 SE workload and how it compares against the calibration system.

The Core i7-6700-based MAGNUS EN1080 obviously performs far better than the ThinkCenter M800 with a Core i3-6100. However, the presence of a discrete GPU in the EN1080 drives up the energy consumption quite a bit compared to the calibration system. The benchmark numbers just prove that the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 is no slouch when it comes to business tasks, but, it makes no sense to purchase it just for that purpose. Gaming is the obvious focus, and we will be looking at the relevant benchmarks starting with the next sub-section.

Futuremark PCMark 8

PCMark 8 provides various usage scenarios (home, creative and work) and offers ways to benchmark both baseline (CPU-only) as well as OpenCL accelerated (CPU + GPU) performance. We benchmarked select PCs for the OpenCL accelerated performance in all three usage scenarios. These scores are heavily influenced by the CPU in the system. The Core i7-6700 is the most powerful CPU that we have evaluated in the SFF PC space, and we have not seen any GPU as capable as the GTX 1080 in this market segment till now. Therefore, it is no surprise that the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 comes out on top in all of the Futuremark benchmarks.

Miscellaneous Futuremark Benchmarks

3D Rendering - CINEBENCH R15

We have moved on from R11.5 to R15 for 3D rendering evaluation. CINEBENCH R15 provides three benchmark modes - OpenGL, single threaded and multi-threaded. Evaluation of select PCs in all three modes provided us the following results. As we saw in the Futuremark benchmarks, the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 easily comes out on top in all of the modes.

Performance Metrics - II

In this section, we mainly look at benchmark modes in programs used on a day-to-day basis, i.e, application performance and not synthetic workloads.

x264 Benchmark

First off, we have some video encoding benchmarks courtesy of x264 HD Benchmark v5.0. This is simply a test of CPU performance. As expected, the Core i7-6700-based ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 comes out with leading numbers. Actual x264 encoding performance with the Skylake processors and using the latest x264 releases (with AVX512 support) is bound to be even better compared to the numbers below.

7-Zip

7-Zip is a very effective and efficient compression program, often beating out OpenCL accelerated commercial programs in benchmarks even while using just the CPU power. 7-Zip has a benchmarking program that provides tons of details regarding the underlying CPU's efficiency. In this subsection, we are interested in the compression and decompression MIPS ratings when utilizing all the available threads.

TrueCrypt

As businesses (and even home consumers) become more security conscious, the importance of encryption can't be overstated. Almost all modern CPUs support AES-NI for acceleration of the cryptographic processes. The Core i7-6700 in the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 does have AES-NI support. TrueCrypt, a popular open-source disk encryption program can take advantage of the AES-NI capabilities. In the graph below, we can get an idea of how fast a TrueCrypt volume would behave in the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 and how it would compare with other select PCs. This is a purely CPU feature / clock speed based test.

Agisoft Photoscan

Agisoft PhotoScan is a commercial program that converts 2D images into 3D point maps, meshes and textures. The program designers sent us a command line version in order to evaluate the efficiency of various systems that go under our review scanner. The command line version has two benchmark modes, one using the CPU and the other using both the CPU and GPU (via OpenCL). The benchmark takes around 50 photographs and does four stages of computation:

• Stage 1: Align Photographs
• Stage 2: Build Point Cloud (capable of OpenCL acceleration)
• Stage 3: Build Mesh
• Stage 4: Build Textures

We record the time taken for each stage. Since various elements of the software are single threaded, others multithreaded, and some use GPUs, it is interesting to record the effects of CPU generations, speeds, number of cores, DRAM parameters and the GPU using this software.

Results are similar to what we saw with the EN980. Given NVIDIA's focus on CUDA, Photoscan's use of OpenCL for GPU acceleration doesn't yield as much benefit as one would expect. However, in the CPU-bound stages, the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 comes out easily on top.

Dolphin Emulator

Wrapping up our application benchmark numbers is the Dolphin Emulator benchmark mode results. This is again a test of the CPU capabilities, and the Core i7-6700 has no trouble in completing the benchmark in the least time of all the SFF PCs that we have evaluated.

Gaming Benchmarks

The gaming credentials of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 are quite impressive. It is a bonafide high-end desktop GPU in the NVIDIA Pascal series (GP204). The version in the MAGNUS EN1080 is not crippled in any way despite the size of the unit. The GPU should easily be able to support 4K gaming and meet the requirements for VR headsets.

For the purpose of benchmarking, we chose four different games (Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite and DiRT Showdown) at three different quality levels. Note that the main aim here is not to show that the GTX 1080 can play the latest and greatest games (which it can do). Rather, it is to compare the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 against other gaming-focused mini-PCs that we have evaluated before.

Sleeping Dogs

Tomb Raider

Bioshock Infinite

DiRT Showdown

The Talos Principle

GRID Autosport

Similar to the MAGNUS EN980, the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 is way beyond the league of the other gaming mini-PCs that we have evaluated. In fact, it is around 20 - 60% faster than even the MAGNUS EN980 in our tested gaming workloads.

It must be kept in mind that the performance doesn't come for cheap. At $2000 for a barebones configuration, consumers could also contemplate purchasing notebooks with similar GPUs (given that NVIDIA no longer makes a distinction between mobile and desktop GPUs). In the next section, we will take a look at some select benchmarks to get an idea of how the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 compares against gaming notebooks.

Gaming Notebooks Compared

One of the most common comments posted in response to mini-PC reviews is that the value proposition of an equivalent notebook is much higher than that of the PC. While there are plenty of factors that might make this comparison invalid, we thought it would be interesting to see how the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 fares against premium gaming notebooks. Towards this, we borrowed a few benchmarks from our notebook reviews and processed them on the EN1080. In the graphs below, we also have the gaming mini-PCs on which the benchmarks were processed. First, we will look at some artificial benchmarks before moving on to the games themselves.

3DMark Revisited

 

GFXBench

Dota 2

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

The takeaway from these results is that the performance of the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 is beaten only by the Clevo desktop replacement (DTR) notebook that uses the same GPU, but, with a 91W Core i7-6700K, instead of the 65W Core i7-6700. This gives the Clevo DTR an edge in the benchmarks that also depend on the CPU performance.

Networking and Storage Performance

Networking and storage are two major aspects which influence our experience with any computing system. This section presents results from our evaluation of these aspects in the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080. On the storage side, one option would be repetition of our strenuous SSD review tests on the drive(s) in the PC. Fortunately, to avoid that overkill, PCMark 8 has a storage bench where certain common workloads such as loading games and document processing are replayed on the target drive. Results are presented in two forms, one being a benchmark number and the other, a bandwidth figure. We ran the PCMark 8 storage bench on selected PCs and the results are presented below.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 lands itself in the second spot behind the Samsung SSD 950 PRO in the Intel Skull Canyon NUC. Both use a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe link and custom drivers to deliver the chart-topping performance numbers.

On the networking side, we restricted ourselves to the evaluation of the WLAN component. Our standard test router is the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk configured with both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. The router is placed approximately 20 ft. away, separated by a drywall (as in a typical US building). A wired client is connected to the R7000 and serves as one endpoint for iperf evaluation. The PC under test is made to connect to either the 5 GHz (preferred) or 2.4 GHz SSID and iperf tests are conducted for both TCP and UDP transfers. It is ensured that the PC under test is the only wireless client for the Netgear R7000. We evaluate total throughput for up to 32 simultaneous TCP connections using iperf and present the highest number in the graph below.

In the UDP case, we try to transfer data at the highest rate possible for which we get less than 1% packet loss.

The WLAN component is one of the weak links of the configuration. The 1x1 configuration is the same as that of the MAGNUS EN980 and EN970. The bandwidth numbers are also similar, and lose out in the charts to the mini-PCs with 2x2 802.11ac radios.

HTPC Credentials

The ZBOX MAGNUS EN980 impressed us with its noise profile for HTPC duties. The ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 takes it one step further. The fan curves have been altered due to better power management from the GPU. The end result is that the noise profile is even better than that of the EN980. Liquid cooling enables the fans to operate at very low speeds compared to the regular heat sink and blower combinations used in other mini-PCs. Obviously, the unit is not for the discerning HTPC enthusiast who is better off with a passively cooled system. Its acoustic profile doesn't do any disservice to the EN1080's chances of being used as a gaming HTPC.

Refresh Rate Accuracy

Starting with Haswell, Intel, AMD and NVIDIA have been on par with respect to display refresh rate accuracy. The most important refresh rate for videophiles is obviously 23.976 Hz (the 23 Hz setting). As we have come to expect from NVIDIA, the default refresh rate accuracy is not that great, though they do allow fine-tuning of the refresh rate unlike other GPU vendors.

The gallery below presents some of the other refresh rates that we tested out. The first statistic in madVR's OSD indicates the display refresh rate.

Network Streaming Efficiency

Evaluation of OTT playback efficiency was done by playing back our standard YouTube test stream and five minutes from our standard Netflix test title. Using HTML5, the YouTube stream plays back a 720p encoding. Since YouTube now defaults to HTML5 for video playback, we have stopped evaluating Adobe Flash acceleration. Note that only NVIDIA exposes GPU and VPU loads separately. Both Intel and AMD bundle the decoder load along with the GPU load. The following two graphs show the power consumption at the wall for playback of the HTML5 stream in Mozilla Firefox (v 50.1.0).

GPU load was around 11.59% for the YouTube HTML5 stream and 4.26% for the steady state 6 Mbps Netflix streaming case.

Netflix streaming evaluation was done using the Windows 10 Netflix app. Manual stream selection is available (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-S) and debug information / statistics can also be viewed (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-D). Statistics collected for the YouTube streaming experiment were also collected here.

Given the gaming focus, it is no surprise that the EN1080 is not the most power-efficient platform for pure OTT streaming use-cases.

Decoding and Rendering Benchmarks

In order to evaluate local file playback, we concentrate on Kodi (for the casual user) and madVR (for the HTPC enthusiast). Under madVR, we decided to test out only the default out-of-the-box configuration (with stress configurations stowed away for a dedicated HTPC GPU review).

madVR 0.90.4 was evaluated with MPC-HC 1.7.10.269 and the LAV Filters included in it. The default configuration (dxva2n) was used for all the LAV Filters options.

In our earlier reviews, we focused on presenting the GPU loading and power consumption at the wall in a table (with problematic streams in bold). Starting with the Broadwell NUC review, we decided to represent the GPU load and power consumption in a graph with dual Y-axes. Eleven different test streams of 90 seconds each were played back with a gap of 30 seconds between each of them. The characteristics of each stream are annotated in the relevant region in the graph. Note that the GPU usage is graphed in red and green, and needs to be considered against the left axis, while the at-wall power consumption is graphed in blue and teal, and needs to be considered against the right axis.

GPU loading is less than 60% even for madVR active with HEVC 10b content being decoded (4K to 1080p downsample). It is unlikely that the EN1080 will encounter any media file that can't be decoded and post-processed using madVR's default configuration. Kodi is even less taxing on the GPU.

Moving on to the codec support, the GTX 1080 comes with the latest and greatest VPU from NVIDIA. It has support for both VP9 and HEVC Main10. However, there seems to be no support for VP9 10-bit (that is currently not a deal-breaker for any HTPC). DXVA Checker serves as a confirmation.

Power Consumption and Thermal Performance

The power consumption at the wall was measured with a 1080p display being driven through the HDMI port. In the graphs below, we compare the idle and load power of the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 with other gaming mini-PCs evaluated before. For load power consumption, we ran our own custom stress test (Prime95 and FurMark) as well as the AIDA64 System Stability Test with various stress components, and noted the maximum sustained power consumption at the wall.

The usage of a NVMe SSD (as compared to a SATA SSD) and changes in the board design can probably explain the slightly higher idling power consumption of the EN1080 as compared to the EN980. The more surprising result is the maximum sustained power consumption. It turned out to be actually lower than that of the EN980. We repeated the tests with multiple configurations of FurMark, but we were not able to get the system to consume as much power as the EN980. Given that the GPU is a major component of the load power consumption, this points to the increased power efficiency of the GTX 1080 for the same workload when compared to the GTX 980.

Our thermal stress routine starts with the system at idle, followed by four stages of different system loading profiles using the AIDA64 System Stability Test (each of 30 minutes duration). In the first stage, we stress the CPU, caches and RAM. In the second stage, we add the GPU to the above list. In the third stage, we stress the GPU standalone. In the final stage, we stress all the system components (including the disks). Beyond this, we leave the unit idle in order to determine how quickly the various temperatures in the system can come back to normal idling range. The various clocks, temperatures and power consumption numbers for the system during the above routine are presented in the graphs below.

We repeated the same observations with our legacy stress test using the latest versions of Prime95 and Furmark.

The CPU and GPU idle at less than 30 C, which shows the excellent nature of the thermal solution. However, the SSD idles at around 60 C. Given that there is no thermal protection at all other than a little bit of airflow, it is not surprising to find that the M.2 NVMe SSD is unable to keep a cooler profile.

Concluding Remarks

The preceding pages have clearly shown that the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 packs a lot of punch despite its compact footprint. The CPU benchmarks are at the top of the charts. In fact, thanks to the presence of the Core i7-6700, it can perform as well as any custom-built desktop rig with a 65W TDP CPU. On the GPU side, short of a rig with SLI GPUs, it is difficult to imagine a system providing better gaming performance. On the whole, performance-wise, Zotac has given us no cause for complaint with the EN1080.

One of the talking points in the comments section of our review of the EN980 was the $1600 barebones price. With the Pascal-based GTX 1080 being a newer variant, and the CPU being upgrade from a Core i5 to a Core i7 Skylake-S SKU, it is not a surprise that the EN1080 has a much higher MSRP of $2000. At this price, Zotac is competing with boutique PC vendors, and, to tell the truth, we believe Zotac's edge lies in the compactness of the unit. This alone might deserve a premium, but, we find that the pricing is actually par for the course - We tried to configure the Clevo DTR discussed in the gaming notebooks section with specifications similar to our review configuration. The price turned out to be upwards of $3500 compared to our configuration price of around $2500. Since the Clevo DTR comes with a display panel, it can account for the difference in price. All said, Zotac's ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 can be a worthy competitor to desktop gaming PC models from boutique PC vendors.

The OCZ RD400 and two Corsair Vengeance DDR4 SODIMMs in our build. Note that we left the 2.5" drive slot unused

In the first section, we briefly talked about how the second-generation unit addressed the shortcomings of the first-gen MAGNUS EN980. It is worth repeating them here - the EN1080 now supports M.2 PCIe SSDs and DDR4 SODIMMs. The internal GPU has been upgraded to a high-end member in the latest offerings from NVIDIA. The 16nm GPU ensures a very power-efficient platform. The alteration of the fan curves has led to a system with excellent sound characteristics. The second-generation EN1080 also includes a front-panel HDMI port - which is excellent for VR headsets like the HTC Vive.

Though many of the issues that we pointed out in the EN980 review have been addressed, there is still scope for Zotac to improve the product further. The M.2 SSD slot needs some sort of thermal protection in the form of a thermal pad attached to the underside of the chassis. This was not a big deal with the EN980 because that had a SATA-only M.2 slot. However, with the newer version supporting the power-hungry PCIe / NVMe protocol, it is important to address this aspect. Other nice-to-have features include a PCIe bridge for the SDXC slot instead of the USB 2.0 bridge (this can improve speeds with the latest UHS-II cards capable of operating at more than 150 MBps), and a 2x2 Wi-Fi radio (in fact, we are ready to sacrifice one of the two LAN ports for a 2x2 radio). It would also be nice to have a couple more USB 3.0 Type-A ports on the sides of the chassis, or, in the front panel. It would not be a bad idea to convert a couple of the USB 3.0 ports in the rear to USB 2.0 (as they probably get used for the keyboard and/or the mouse), while shifting the USB 3.0 ports to a better accessible place. The premium PC also needs to adopt the Alpine Ridge controller with Thunderbolt 3 / USB 3.1 Gen 2 support instead of the plain ASMedia ASM1142 solution.

The Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080 has turned out to be the perfect product to celebrate Zotac's 10-year anniversary. It is a unique and powerful product, and the pricing is competitive when compared against similar offerings from boutique PC vendors.

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