Zotac ZBOX: Brazos Goes HTPC

The ultimate goal of any HTPC is to handle any media content you might desire, all while consuming very little power and generating no noise. Package all of that in an attractive case that can fit in with your other home theater equipment and you’ve got a winning HTPC solution. Previous attempts have used NVIDIA’s ION platform (Atom + GeForce GPU), which met the low-power requirement but often failed at decoding certain video streams, and the Atom CPU was so slow that the UI interactions frequently felt sluggish. Other solutions have used higher performance CPUs, but such designs use more power, creating unwanted noise from the cooling fans, and there’s still the issue of media support.

Now, Zotac hopes to satisfy the needs of the low-power crowd while providing enough performance and decoding prowess to please A/V aficionados who want 24FPS content to work properly. To do this, they’ve turned to AMD’s Brazos platform, sporting Atom-like power with roughly twice the CPU performance and integrated graphics that are faster than ION and we might just have a winner. Zotac also includes a Blu-ray drive, for those who prefer disc content. Can the new ZBOX AD03BR-PLUS-U finally supplant the higher performance CPUs with discrete GPUs that so many HTPC users end up using in order to handle all of their video decoding needs? Let’s find out.

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Review: Zotac GeForce GTX 570

The Zotac GTX 570 is the daddy in graphics cards terms. At a chunk under £300 it's a card that will more than likely take up most of your upgrade budget, so is it worth that outlay on a single component?

Well, as we've seen before the answer is not that easy. Dropping in the fastest, most expensive GPU is not always the magic pill to deliver instant frame rate bonuses for your favourite games.

But this GF 110-powered graphics card is a quite excellent example of just why the Fermi architecture is so good, especially in this second generation of Nvidia's GPU.

Despite the naming conventions this is not really a direct replacement for the GTX 470 from the previous generation, it's actually got far more in common with the top-card of that line, the GTX 480.

Tweaked GPU

It carries the same number of CUDA cores and texture units and only drops 8 ROPs compared with that gaming behemoth. Thanks to a transistor-level tweak of the Fermi architecture Nvidia was able to drop operating power-draw and heat production, meaning it could open up far more of the full Fermi GPU for the GTX 5xx series.

So as well as being quieter, cooler and less power hungry, this latest line up of Nvidia cards are also significantly quicker. And that's definitely no mean feat of engineering.

Despite the difference in price between the GTX 570 and the AMD HD 6950 there isn't a huge gulf in performance between them when you take the CPU out of the equation. Indeed, as we mentioned before, when it comes to the serious work of DirectX 11 tessellation in Metro 2033, the HD 6950 actually scales much better in terms of resolution compared with the GTX 570.

When we're talking about upgrades though we always have to keep the CPU in the equation and that's where things get really interesting.

On the Intel side the Nvidia architecture seems to favour its processors; scaling much better than competing AMD graphics cards. With AMD graphics cards on an AMD setup there is actually very little difference in the GPU's performance as you swap in faster, more powerful CPUs.

With the Nvidia cards though they rely much more on the CPUs performance for their own speed. The Nvidia-favouring DiRT 2 benchmarks aside, the HD 6950 is just as capable as the more expensive GTX 570 with high-performance AMD CPUs and far better at coping with lower-end processors in general.

So in the end it comes down to your platform choice. If you want the fastest frame rates on an Intel rig then Nvidia cards will generally deliver the performance you expect, and on an AMD setup pairing up its CPUs and GPUs is the way to go. Makes sense really.

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Computex 2011: Zotac Z68 miniITX Motherboards

Zotac has two mini-ITX Z68 motherboards on display at Computex: the Zotac Z68-ITX WiFi A and B models (Z68ITX-A-E and Z68ITX-B-E). Both feature Intel’s Z68 chipset with all of the goodness that brings along with it (mainly SSD caching). The A model has a PCIe x16 slot for discrete graphics and uses standard DDR3 DIMMs. The B model features a GeForce GT 430 on-board and thus uses SO-DIMMs to save on space.

Both boards feature four SATA ports, WiFi and accept standard ATX power (4-pin 12V and 8-pin 12V connectors on the B and A models, respectively). 

The A model has two HDMI outputs and one miniDP out, while the B model has two DVI, HDMI and one DP output thanks to the on-board GT 430. 

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Zotac MotherBoard's Prices | Rates For Intel Processors in Indian National Rupees

Zotac NF610I-C-E - Value nForce 610i/GeForce 7050 1333 FSB  - - - Rs. 2325 

Zotac NF780I-A-E nForce 780i Supreme- 1333FSB  - - - Rs. 14525

Zotac NF790I-A-E nForce790i-Supreme - 1333 FSB  - - - Rs. 21500

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