HoTWiReZ's DoMaiN

[News BoT]

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Over the last year or so, Zotac seems to have reduced its motherboard output in focus of the mini-PCs.&nbsp; It explains why we have no Zotac Z87 or Z97 motherboard on show!&nbsp; However the mini-PC business seems to be doing well for Zotac, especially in the digital signage sector so I hear, and we have reported on some interesting new models in our Pipeline feed over the year.&nbsp; There were two particularly interesting items on display at the Zotac booth this year at Computex.</p>
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ZBOX Sphere</p>
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Despite a sphere not being box shaped, the ZBOX line recently got a new member in the Sphere.&nbsp; The model on display at the booth was based on the i5-4200U mobile processor with support for two SO-DIMM modules of 8 GB each.</p>
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The Sphere is designed to light up around the rim, and I believe Zotac is planning to develop different lighting strategies.&nbsp; The design opens itself up to some visual modifications down the road &ndash; I instantly thought of a Homer Simpson model.</p>
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The rear is where all the connectors are, including a 19V DC-In, four USB 3.0, two USB 2.0, Ethernet, HDMI, DisplayPort, an SD card reader and front panel audio connections.&nbsp; The system also includes built in WiFi, but it is a single stream 802.11ac solution.&nbsp; It does allow dual band usage, but I think dual stream is now becoming the standard, so I hope this is upgraded before the Sphere comes to market in volume.&nbsp; Storage comes from a single mSATA port slot in the device.</p>
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ZBOX CA320 nano</p>
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Perhaps a little exciting was the fanless AMD mini-PC also on display.&nbsp; The system uses an 8W quad core Jaguar/Temash APU (the A6-1450, 1 GHz stock, 1.4 GHz turbo) which is cooled by the bulk device itself.</p>
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Being a Temash APU, there is only a single channel of memory which means a single SO-DIMM can give a maximum of 8 GB.&nbsp; Storage is via a 2.5&rdquo; SATA 3 Gbps SSD, with HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs.</p>
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The integrated card reader also has 802.11ac WiFi included (no word on the chipset for that), but the chassis has a large number of USB ports to additional functionality.</p>
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<div>Gallery: Computex 2014: Zotac’s ZBOX Sphere and AMD Fanless Mini-PC<div></div></div></p>
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Source: AnandTech
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