Items tagged with Mini PC
Zotac rarely misses an opportunity to crank out a new mini PC, and so it is no surprise that its newest model, the Magnus EC52070D, pairs an 8th generation Intel Core processor with NVIDIA's newfangled GeForce RTX 2070 based on Turing. The end result is a miniature box that punches above its weight class. We have not tested this particular model, though we have played around with several previous generation Zbox machines. It always amazes us the level of power that can be crammed into a comparatively small chassis. In this case, the Magnus measures 8.86 (L) x 7.99 (W) by 5.04 (H) inches. It's not Zotac's tiniest enclosure, but is certainly dwarfed by traditional desktop towers, even compact ones....
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The popular Raspberry Pi 3 has a new rival in the mini PC space. Shenzhen Xunlong Software has released its Orange Pi 3 development board, with this latest iteration addressing some of the shortcomings of previous generation models. Just as importantly from a consumer standpoint, it offers superior specs compared to the Raspberry Pi 3, while keep the price affordable at around $35 shipped. As with its predecessor, the new Orange Pi 3 is based on the Allwinner H6 platform, which consists of a 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core processor clocked at 1.8GHz. It also features 1GB of LPDDR3 memory for the base model, or 2GB of memory if you want to pony up an additional $5 for the upgraded version. Both...
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ASUS unveiled a new mini PC built around Google's Chrome operating system with full support for Android apps from Google Play. The new Chromebox 3, as it's called, sports some impressive hardware inside a NUC-like chassis, including to an 8th generation Intel Core i7-8550U processor. It's a burly chip based on Intel's Kaby Lake Refresh (Kaby Lake-R) architecture with 4 cores and 8 threads clocked at 1.8GHz to 4GHz, with 8MB of L3 cache. Other processor options include the Core i5-8250U, Core i3-7100U, and Celeron 3865U, depending on the buyer's power needs. Systems like this have a wide range of uses, whether it's running dual displays for high-level multitasking, or as a plug-and-play media...
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The fast growing Internet of Things (IoT) market has been a boon to the mini PC market, and the same can be said about the relatively recent maker movement. Plain and simple, geeks love to tinker. The affordable Raspberry Pi helped popularize the mini PC category by offering tinkerers cheap entry into the field, and because of that, we're seeing some interesting competitors emerge. One of them is the NanoPi Neo Plus2. The NanoPi Neo Plus2 is powerful and cheaper alternative to the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. It is available online for just $25, which is $10 less expensive than the Pi 3. Based on price along, you might think the NanoPi Neo Plus2 is a comparatively under powered mini PC or otherwise...
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Intel is releasing a new line of "Next Unit of Computing" (NUC) devices built around its newly launched desktop Kaby Lake processor family unveiled at CES. While not a monumental leap over Skylake, Intel's Kaby Lake architecture brings with it a handful of architecture improvements and better integrated graphics, both of which are welcome upgrades in the fast growing mini PC sector.Early generation NUCs were interesting, though not necessarily exciting due to their limitations. However, NUCs have become increasingly capable little machines as of late, and for users in need of a system that can tackle general purpose computing chores, NUCs have become intriguing options. That is even more true...
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Forget everything you know about workstations, or at least dismiss the preconceived notion that systems serving up server grade power are typically as big as they are powerful. That might have been the case before, but HP just turned the sector upside down by introducing its Z2 Mini, a relatively tiny box measuring 2.3 inches high by 8.5 inches long and wide. HP is billing the Z2 Mini as the industry's first mini workstation. We won't argue that claim—at just 2.3 inches high, the Z2 Mini is 90 percent smaller than a traditional business-class tower desktop. Or put another way, this thing is shorter than a cup of espresso, HP points out. The Z2 Mini isn't small just for the sake of boasting a...
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Depending on how old you are and where you went to school, you might memories of jabbing a potato with nails, wiring it up with copper, and using the seemingly unlikely contraption to illuminate a light bulb. That was high tech stuff back in the day, but it's a different era and today's kids are playing with far cooler toys. One of them is BBC's Micro Bit, a mini PC that's not totally unlike the Raspberry Pi. Having already been used to teach kids in the U.K. how to program, the Micro Bit is headed overseas. BBC gifted 1 million of the DIY PCs to year 7 (sixth grade) students in the U.K. last year, the the roll out happened later than teachers anticipated. Many of them held onto the device until...
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Budding programmers and makers on a budget were treated to the Raspberry Pi Zero last November, and despite carrying a shockingly low price of just $5, the Raspberry Pi Foundation was somehow "blindsided" by the level of demand. That's only going to increase now that a camera connector's been added. Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton said it was "through dumb luck" that the same size FPC connector used on the company's Compute Module Development Kit happened to fit perfectly on the right hand side of the Raspberry Pi Zero. All it took was some rearranging of components and just like that, the least expensive version of Raspberry Pi was upgraded with one of the most frequently demanded missing features....
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The teeny-tiny PC movement that's leading the Internet of Things (IoT) category is largely dominated by ARM-based processors, and for good reason—they're cheap and capable. That's fine and dandy, but what if you prefer to work with a x86 architecture? You have options, one of them being JaguarBoard, a mini PC project that's currently in search of funding on Kickstarter. JaguarBoard looks strikingly similar to Raspberry Pi, which is arguably the most popular credit card sized PC out there. But unlike Raspberry Pi, JaguarBoard allows users to code for a x86 architecture courtesy of its Intel Atom Z3735G (Bay Trail) foundation (similar to the CPU you'll find in Lenovo's Yoga Tablet 2)....
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We cover a lot of high end gear, everything from multi-core processors with boatloads of cache to graphics cards that can run circles around Crysis. But what about the other end of the spectrum? A company called Endless Computers points out that in the developing world, nearly 5 billion people don't have access to a PC. Endless aims to change that with a low cost system that brings the Internet to people who otherwise wouldn't have access to either. Meet the Endless Mini, a $79 sphere-shaped PC. It's built around an ARM Cortex-A5 processor running at 1.5GHz with a Mali-450 GPU. It also has 1GB of RAM and 24GB of solid state storage. Connectivity options consist of three USB 2.0 ports (two on...
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Shh, do you hear that? Neither do we, nor are we supposed to. In case you're wondering, we're listening for MSI's Cubi N mini PC, only we can listen until the cows come home and never hear a peep from the tiny box. That's because it's a fanless system designed to deliver "ultra-silent" (not just silent!) operation.In case you haven't been paying attention to the NUCs and Zboxes and every other pint sized PC of late, these mini systems are growing in popularity. You can thank advances in processor technology for that, and in this case, give a salute to Intel and its Braswell architecture. The Cubi N features an Intel Celeron N3150 processor built on a 14nm manufacturing process, which provides...
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We’ve always been enamored with Zotac’s tiny Zbox mini PCs for quite some time now, but the company just may have outdone itself with the new Zbox Magnus EN970. For starters, let’s go ahead and get this out of the way — you won’t find an Intel Skylake processor under the hood on the Zbox Magnus EN970. Instead you’ll find a completely competent Broadwell-based, dual-core Core i5-5200U CPU processor. But the magic happens when we move to the graphics power that is lurking within this pint-sized machine, which measures just 8.3” x 8” x 2.1”. Inside you’ll find an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 graphics card with 1280 CUDA cores, a 192-bit memory interface and 3GB of GDDR5 memory at your disposal. Interestingly...
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Give credit to the Raspberry Pi Foundation for helping to popularize the tiny and affordable PC movement that has makers and programmers of all skill levels tinkering with do-it-yourself projects. Millions of boards later, others have jumped into the category, including CHIP, the world's first $9 computer and one that could give Raspberry Pi a run for its money. In response, the price of a previous generation Raspberry Pi Model B+ has been cut to $25. That's a $10 price cut compared to its original $35 price tag. It's a long overdue one. Officially, the Raspberry Pi Foundation says that production optimizations have made the Raspberry Pi Model B+ cheaper to produce, hence the price cut, though...
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If there's a company that knows how to build a pint sized PC, it's Zotac, makers of a about a million different ZBOX models (we rounded up a bit). Zotac's newest creation is the ZBOX Nano XS. It's small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, yet packs an Intel Core i3 4030U dual-core processor based on Haswell inside. That's not all. There are two DDR3L-1600 SO-DIMM slots that support up to 16GB of RAM, an mSATA port, HDMI and mini-DisplayPort output options, 3-in-1 memory card reader, GbE LAN, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, two USB 2.0 ports (front), two USB 3.0 ports (back), 3.5mm input and outputs, and Intel HD Graphics 4400. "Zotac is a pioneer when it comes to packing as much performance...
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