ZOTAC International introduced the Magnus ERX480 Mini PC that is the first to be equipped with Polaris Architecture and incorporated with AMD's Radeon RX 480 as its graphic module.
The ZBox Magnus ERX480 is an addition to the award-winning ZBox Magnus Gaming Mini-PC series from ZOTAC. The barebones of the mini-PC comes equipped with an air-cooled Intel Core i5-6400T and the AMD Radeon RX 480 graphics module.
The chassis of the ZBox Magnus ERX480 is equipped with two USB 3.1 ports in Types-A/C, two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports. The data rate of its Type-C port can handle 10Gbps; however, it has no video output or Thunderbolt 3 support. It also features two HDMI 2.0 ports alongside two DisplayPort 1.3 that can be utilized for video output. It also sports a Gigabit LAN and an 802.11ac Wi-Fi module for internet connectivity, according to Tom's Hardware.
Furthermore, the ZBox Magnus ERX480 is VR-ready. It has Two DDR4-SODIMM slots that can be outfitted with up to 32GB of RAM. For storage, it will accept M.2 SATA SSD or 2.5-inch HDD drives.
The AMD Radeon RX 480 is the high-end model of the three-card 400 series, according to Digital Trends. It followed by its lower end siblings the RX 470 and RX 460. The GPU has 2,304 shader cores and 4TB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit memory bus.
ZOTAC usually provides two models of its mini-PC's a Plus version and a bare-bones version. However, for the ZBox Magnus ERX480, it adds a third model that adds a 64-bit Windows 10 Home installation for an additional cost.
Incorporating AMD's Radeon RX 480 is ZOTAC's first foray into the VR-ready mini-PC market that is dominated for so long by NVIDIA until now. This introduction will give consumers another option of acquiring a VR-Ready GPU at lower prices.
Below is the specifications of the ZBox Magnus ERX480 PLUS model:
| Processor: | Quad-Core Intel Core i5 (2.2GHz/2.8GHz) |
| Chipset: | AMD, Intel 100 Series |
| System memory: | 8GB DDR4 expandable to 32GB |
| Graphics chip: | AMD Radeon RX 480 |
| Video memory: | 4 GB of GDDR5 |
| Storage: | 1x 120GB M.2 SATA SSD 1x 1TB 2.5-inch hard drive |
| Wireless connectivity: | Bluetooth 4.2, Wireless N |
| Wired networking: | 2x gigabit Ethernet ports |
| Ports: | 2x USB 3.0 2x USB 2.0 1x USB 3.1 Type-C 1x USB 3.1 1x SD card reader (3-in-1) 2x HDMI 2.0 2x DisplayPort 1.3 1x Microphone jack 1x Headphone jack |
| Size: | 8.26 x 8.00 x 2.44 inches |
There are still no details as to the price of the unit, but ZOTAC announced that the ZBox Magnus ERX480 will be available sometime this month.
