 Building a fairly compact, super powerful system with like a GTX 980 and a mini-ITX case is kind of fashionable right now, but there's a whole other class of machine that's smaller than what can be built using off-the-shelf components. The issue is that with these systems you get less customizability, and in some cases, like we experienced with this really small Gigabyte Bricks microPC, heat management can be a real problem if desktop-class GPUs are integrated into such a design. So Zotac is taking a bit of a middle-ground approach with their new ZBOX Magnus EN970 Compact Gaming Desktop. At only about 20 centimeters long and wide and about 5 centimeters tall, it's small, but not so small that it seems like it'll melt the minute you fire up Battlefront, but does it hold up? I guess we'll find out. If you already know about Loot Crate, go sign up for the October Crate at the link in the video description. If you don't, stick around till the end of the video to check out our unboxing of the September Summon Crate with items from Pokemon and Hearthstone. So let's start with a look at the Magnus's specs. At the heart of this tiny PC is an Intel Core i5-5200U processor, running at 2.2 GHz with a turbo boost speed of up to 2.7 GHz. For graphics, you get a desktop-class Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 with 3GB of GDDR5 VRAM, and, well, okay, you don't get a whole lot else. This is a barebones kit, meaning that you get no storage, no RAM, and no operating system included, but it's got two 2.5-inch SATA 3 6GB per second bays and an M.2 slot. For RAM, you will need laptop-style SODIMM memory. It's got two memory slots with official support for up to 16GB of RAM, although we were able to install 32GB of this fancy-pants high-density stuff that we got from Intelligent Memory a little while back. Not the first time we fit tons of RAM into a tiny PC. You can check out that video here. Now moving on to the outside, the chassis itself has an, I'd say, unassuming but personally appealing look that would fit in well either on your desktop or in your living room as a console replacement. The front panel features a power button that lights up in orange when you turn the system on, and you'll also find two USB 3 ports, headphone and microphone jacks, and an SDXC reader for high-capacity cards. The back panel has two more USB 3.0 ports as well as two USB 2 ports, four HDMI outputs, two gigabit ethernet ports, an antenna connector for the built-in wireless AC Wi-Fi, and of course, a power connector for the included 180W power brick. While another type of display output such as DisplayPort would have been nice to see, at least these are HDMI 2.0 ports, meaning that you can get 4K at 60Hz as long as you have a compatible monitor or television. I wouldn't try to game it that resolution, mind you, on the GTX 960 anyway, but those connections could still be useful if you wanted to use a box like this for other less intensive tasks at high resolution, whether it's web browsing or office work or whatever the case may be. For accessories, you get a screw and Wi-Fi antenna, the aforementioned power brick, and drivers on a CD! Although, since the Magnus doesn't include an optical drive, you'll either need to dig out an external optical drive if you want to get into that CD, or you could just use the also included read-only USB stick. Thumbs up for that one. Installing our RAM and SSD was a breeze. The bottom panel comes off quite easily with a couple of thumb screws revealing the two drive bays and RAM slots. Our test SSD, a Samsung 850 Pro, installed with a very simple tool-less plastic mounting system that snapped right onto the drive. From there, it was just a matter of inserting the SSD directly into the SATA ports and securing it with another thumb screw. It was one of the easiest SSD installations that I've ever done and will allow you to get up and running in a matter of minutes. And remember that these bays also support 2.5-inch mechanical drives if you're more into that sort of thing, giving you the capability to throw an M.2 SSD and then up to two high-capacity hard drives in here. So now let's have a look at some performance numbers, though, just to see how capable the little Magnus is. Although we were a little concerned that a desktop GTX 960 would thermal throttle due to being in such a small case, our gaming results were actually very good. We ran three games at 1080p, starting with Crysis 3 on high settings with anti-aliasing and motion blur turned off and the Magnus delivered a very solid 63 frames per second average. Moving on to Tomb Raider, we got 54 FPS with everything maxed out and FXAA enabled. And finally, we achieved 38 FPS on the Witcher 3 on high settings, again with AA and motion blur off. Aside from FPS numbers, though, we wanted to keep an eye on our GPU's core clock speed to see if it was throttling in spite of the solid performance. And Zotac clearly did a solid job with his cooling solution, with our GTX 960 running smooth at 1038 MHz during both our Crysis 3 Skybox Stair Load Test as well as a Firmarck Stress Test at 1080p with MSAA cranked up. And while that clock speed is about 90 MHz lower than Nvidia's reference GTX 960, you can still expect a solid and consistent gaming experience with the Magnus at normal room temperature. And speaking of temperatures, the Core i5-5200U maintained an average core temperature of a very reasonable 70 degrees Celsius throughout the Ida64 System Stress Test with no thermal throttling either. What's really impressive in addition to that, though, is that the system stayed nearly whisper quiet even during our most strenuous tests, with John standing right next to it during testing and kind of having to get pretty close in order to hear it, even after turning off the room's air conditioning. Our review unit also scored good marks for power consumption, or lack thereof, so even though the included power brick is rated for 180 watts, we didn't come close to hitting that during testing with idle power consumption at a mere 21 watts, going up to 34 watts in Ida and 84 watts in Firmarck, and only 100 watts during the Crysis 3 Load Test. I mean, seeing as there are full-fledged desktop rigs that can consume close to that while idle, this is a big plus if you're an eco-concerned individual who's worried about power draw. We also put the system through a couple synthetic benchmarks to get a feel for its non-gaming performance. It scored 255 in Cinebench, 7438 in Winzip, and, uh, mhh, okay. Although these numbers are just fractions of what you'd expect to get with a desktop Core i5 or Core i7, they are respectable when you consider that the i5-5200U is a low-power part, and it only has two physical cores with four threads. So watch out for that, because while I wouldn't have recommended doing any kind of heavy rendering or, like, super-intensive video editing on a system like this anyway, some games don't cooperate well with two cores or less, so your mileage may vary in terms of the long-term usability of the system for gaming. Which I guess leads us pretty well into the conclusion. I don't really have anything negative to say other than there's a slightly weird pickled vegetable smell that, uh, was kind of detectable when it was first opened, but none of that showed up during, uh, during testing anyway. And I guess, okay, I guess if there was something to complain about, cost is a bit of a tough pill to swallow on this one, because $800 is pretty steep for a barebones machine, especially when you compare it to what you could build in terms of a fully-equipped traditional desktop. But if you can stomach the price, the solid 1080p performance, the thermal management, and superb acoustics make the Zbox Magnus an interesting choice for anyone who wants a bigger-than-it-looks gaming experience in a tiny, lightweight package. So if you don't know what Loot Crate is, basically it's a- basically, basically it's a monthly subscription box for geeks and gamers, as well as pop culture aficionados. So we are gonna be unboxing September's Summon Box, with the October theme being time. It costs less than 20 bucks a month and gets you six to eight items, including licensed gear, apparel, collectibles, and unique one-of-a-kind items. They guarantee a $40 value on each crate if you sign up before October 19th at 9pm, you will actually receive the October crate. If not, you'll miss that cutoff and you won't get another chance. That crate is gone forever. You will have to wait for the September one. The good news is, they're all pretty freaking cool, and they'll all have different themes, whether it's, like, inspired by- inspired by Star Wars. There we go, we got some Hearthstone gear here, whether it's inspired by Marvel, Walking Dead, whatever else the case may be, there is always cool stuff. So here we've got a supernatural Loot Crate car. We've actually collected a whole whack-ton of them now, and we've got a massive amount of cool stuff. Is this, like, a- a Simpsons- that is cool. It's like a Simpsons, Homer Simpson, Buddha thing. Anyway, the point is, if any of this sounds appealing, you can sign up at lootcrate.com slash Linus and enter code LINUS to save 10% on any new subscription. Why is this in a- You buy. Very lucky. Wow, we've got, like, lots more stuff in here. Scratch off with another coin. Ooh, claim your free card pack! Well, whoever watches this first and claims it first is totally gonna get it. Yeah, that's right. I am all about the little bonuses for sticking around and watching the sponsor spots, right? Right, guys? Actually, I think this is the first time I've ever done anything like that, so whatever. But, uh, what else we got in here? Free mobile game. There we go. Oh yeah, and every month you get, like, a little booklet that'll have, like, some articles and some extra- extra swag and cool stuff like that. And then the box usually folds into some kind of, like, cool diorama scene thing as well. So it's, like, a cool place to put all of your summoning stuff. Now, I just wanna get this bag open! There we go. Look at him! So there you go, guys. That's lootcrate.com slash Linus. This hat is f***ing awesome. Thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, I think you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit the like button, or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon, buying a cool t-shirt like... Well, this is a sweatshirt, but whatever. You get the point. Or with a direct contribution through our community forum. Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next, so... Normally I tease something we just did, but this time I'm gonna tease something we're doing soon. I'm gonna be running two systems off of a single box and gaming head-to-head. It's gonna be amazing. Make sure you're subscribed.