Not way back I launched into a small form-factor odyssey with the Fractal Terra. Name me a self-flagellant, however I cherished each minute of the problem-encountering, solution-finding course of. “Measure twice, reduce as soon as” they are saying, and that is completely the philosophy while you’re working inside such tight quantity constraints. You want confidence that your GPU, CPU, and cooler, PSU and reminiscence decisions are all going to suit, and that you could adequately cool the whole lot, earlier than the purpose of buy. Actually half the job is analysis and measurement. There have been spreadsheets.
In the event you like the concept of a small form-factor PC however balk on the construct, then observe the Zbox Magnus One from Zotac. With its roster of performant desktop components, it is basically an off-the-peg SFF PC. Concerning the shape issue, it ticks two of my three bins: it appears to be like nice, and it runs video games fantastically in a compact, sub-10-liter chassis. The third is quiet operation, which is the place the Magnus One stumbles, however we’ll come to that sooner or later.
There is a lean simplicity to the Magnus One’s case design which I discover very enticing, achieved by the usage of honeycomb panels and a minimalist entrance fascia. It is available in black or white, and I’ve to say the white pattern I had in for testing was most good-looking; it’d make a high-quality centrepiece for an uncluttered desktop with matching white peripherals.
Plus, these honeycomb panels are lined with dust-catching metal mesh too so preserving it spotless over time ought to contain little greater than popping the panels off and blasting out the collected dander.
Zboz Magnus One specs
Mannequin reviewed: ERP74070W
CPU: Intel Core i7 13700
GPU: Nvidia RTX 4070 12 GB
Reminiscence: as much as 64 GB DDR5 5600 SODIMM
Storage: 2x PCIe 4 M.2 SSD slots, 1x SATA III
Wi-fi: WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3
I/O: entrance: 2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Tye A, 1x Thunderbolt 4 Sort-C, SDHC/SDXC card reader, 3.5mm headset jack
I/O rear: 2x HDMI 2.1a, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a (GPU), 4x USB 3.2 Sort A, 1x USB Sort-C, 2.5G LAN
Value: $1,800 (Barebones) | £1,374
Accessing the innards is a cinch. Two silicone-clad thumbscrews on the rear launch the highest panel, together with its two hooked up 92 mm case-fans and the related rear fascia. This frees the entire association to slip off as one unit, then it is only a case of popping the aspect panels up and out. Thus de-robed, the Magnus One’s elements are laid naked for additions and upgrades, with the only exception of the flex-style PSU, which dwells within the basement and requires some extra intricate lockpicking to entry.
And what a stable array of elements it’s. On the right-hand aspect of the sandwich-style inside construction is the motherboard, with a full-fat desktop i7 13700 conducting the orchestra. With eight Efficiency cores, eight Environment friendly cores and a max turbo-speed of 5.2 GHz, it is a wonderful gaming CPU. On the opposite aspect of the central divide is a dual-slot, vertically-mounted RTX 4070—a Zotac mannequin, naturally—with 12 GB of GDDR6X RAM. Collectively, these core compute elements promise punchy efficiency at 1440p (2560X1440) and, at a stretch, 1440p Ultrawide (3440×1440). It is a succesful GPU, however not one that’s apt to drive a 4K panel, so honest warning.
The unit ships barebones so you will have to carry your personal RAM and storage (or buy the Magnus One from a retailer with a configurator and have them preinstalled) however that is high-quality by us; going barebones and bargain-hunting in your personal extras is at all times the higher possibility, and I like that Zotac helps this. The motherboard will take as much as 64 GB of DDR5-5600 in SODIMM form-factor, and two M.2 PCIe Gen 4×4 SSDs plus a SATA drive as effectively. There’s additionally a preinstalled Killer wi-fi M.2 card within the combine, which nets you WiFi 6 speeds plus Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity. All in all, a rock-solid spec-sheet.
The exterior IO pulls its weight too. Upfront you get a card reader, 3.5 mm mixed audio jack, a Sort-A USB 3.1 port and a Sort-C Thunderbolt 4 port. Around the again, we discover two USB 3.0 and 4 USB 3.1 ports, 1G and a couple of.5G LAN ports, one other Thunderbolt socket, plus DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.1. Although actually, you will not be needing these final two because the included RTX 4070’s HDMI 2.1a or DP 1.4a ports are the place you will be connecting that top refresh-rate monitor.
We examined the Magnus One at 1080p and 1440p, the latter decision being the perfect hunting-ground for midrange GPUs such because the RTX 4070. At 2560×1440, with extremely settings, DLSS, Body Gen and Ray Tracing in these video games which provide it, this machine performs precisely as you would possibly count on given the sturdy CPU/GPU double-act.
Whole Warfare: Warhammer 3 is slick as you want, seeing 91 fps in battle and 89 fps in marketing campaign, whereas Forza comfortably breaks the 100 fps mark with full ray tracing. As does Cyberpunk, making 109 fps , although when you’re not bothered about ray-tracing, turning it off bumps the rating as much as 142 fps.
In different graphically-intensive titles with out built-in benchmarks, we eyeballed some stellar body fee ranges at 1440p/extremely settings, with DLSS set to balanced and Body Gen on the place relevant. Helldivers 2 will get a rock-solid 91-97 fps, Lifeless House makes between 130-160 fps within the closing boss battle, and A Plague Story: Requiem’s visually pleasant (and conceptually harrowing) Hives stage sees the Magnus One sitting fairly in a buttery-smooth 140-160 fps vary.
So, it is nice information on the efficiency entrance. However there is a value to be paid underneath gaming workloads, and it is your ears which foot the invoice. There is not any getting round it: The Zotac Magnus One’s varied cooling elements generate numerous noise.
The first offender is the CPU cooler. It is a low-profile unit, and moderately than the standard cooling-block-with-top-mounted-fan association, the fan is sunk throughout the cylindrical physique of the cooling-fin array. Whereas this protects on vertical area, it generates a substantial amount of audible turbulence, and each RPM-change may be divined because the fan steps always up and down in response to CPU warmth ranges. It is fairly lairy, to the purpose the place I might need the machine underneath my desk moderately than on it, and that might be a travesty as front-and-centre is the place the svelte Magnus One deserves to be.
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I do want extra PC producers would make noise-reduction a 3rd pillar of their technical design philosophy.
The case followers are subsequent in line. They’re fairly primary 92 mm fashions, and once more very audible, being flush towards the highest panel of the case. The GPU followers are maybe the least offensive, although they nonetheless noticeably add to the audio combine underneath load.
In an try and ameliorate the din, I put in Fan Management to tinker with customized fan curves and discover a temperature-versus-noise candy spot, however the app solely detects the GPU followers, not the CPU or case followers. So, no cube. A scoot around the BIOS then revealed fan-stepping controls for each, and I discovered that capping the CPU and case followers at 50% of their max RPM made an enormous distinction to the machine’s audible quantity, although they left the i7 13700 hovering round 91 °C underneath gaming masses. Nonetheless removed from silent, and hotter than I might ideally like for such a monster of a chip, however definitely much less distracting.
I am a stickler for quiet computing, so out of the field, I discover the Magnus One a bit intrusive. Alongside efficiency and cooling, I do want extra PC producers would make noise-reduction a 3rd pillar of their technical design philosophy. These three variables exist in elastic rigidity with each other, however with the suitable element decisions, a great stability in all three is achievable. In an ideal world, the Magnus One’s public behaviour would match its elegant appears to be like. However I strongly suspect that with a reasonable CPU cooler improve, plus some adventures in undervolting and fan-curve tweaking, you might tutor the beast to behave in well mannered society.
The CPU cooler is 40 mm in peak, and there is a additional 8 mm to play with till you hit the aspect panel. This grants area sufficient to put in one of many higher low-profile coolers available on the market, equivalent to ID Cooling’s IS-47 XT (47 mm), Noctua’s NH-L9I (37 mm) or the Be Quiet! Pure Rock LP (46 mm). We did not have these available to check sadly, however changing the inventory cooler would completely be my first port of name, adopted briefly order by swapping out the 2 top-mounted case followers for a pair of quiet Noctua NF-A9s or comparable.
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Undervolting must also be a severe consideration with the Magnus One. The i7 13700 in our check unit peaked—if not for lengthy—at 145 W as we kicked off the Cinebench24 multicore render check, and that type of wattage locations a horrible heat-burden on low-profile coolers, most of that are rated for decrease TDPs. Prefer it or not, there are some compromises you merely should make in SFF programs, and one of many main ones is in your alternative of CPU.
Purchase if…
✅ You’re after a looker: Clear appears to be like, tiny footprint, and extra elegant in design than most PC circumstances.
✅ 1440p is your playground: The Magnus One’s CPU and GPU excel at 2560×1440 with extremely settings and Ray Tracing.
Do not buy if…
❌ You desire a quiet system: In its inventory kind, the Magnus One generates lots of fan noise.
❌ You intend a later improve to a fats GPU: The Magnus comes with – and can solely settle for – a dual-slot graphics card.
In my humble opinion, there are extra appropriate processors for small form-factor builds than the Thirteenth-gen desktop i7, with a lot decrease max TDP rankings. For the Fractal Terra, I plumped for the 12-core, 24-thread, 5.4GHz AMD Ryzen 9 7900, which faucets out at simply 88 W. Utilizing a low-profile cooler, with the fan-curve rigged for silent operating, it is truly fairly straightforward to maintain this chip within the 70 °C vary underneath gaming masses with nary a peep from of the cooler.
Likewise, most GPUs profit from a tiny undervolt utilizing MSI Afterburner. For a minimal efficiency discount—and presumably a acquire, relying on the cardboard—the lowered warmth era means you may tweak the fan curve in MSI Afterburner to run at a decrease RPM underneath full load and eradicate a great deal of noise. I daresay the RTX 4070 within the Magnus One is a chief candidate for this process.
In fact, all of us have differing tolerance ranges for noise. In the event you’re a full-time headset consumer, you will not be fairly so bothered, and enjoying with fan settings within the BIOS can definitely enhance issues. In any other case, there isn’t any denying that the Magnus One is an aesthetically interesting machine that can get you ATX-grade body charges at 1440p, and does so in a bodily quantity which might solely be matched by a sophisticated, ground-up SFF construct.
