Any experience with a Zotac ZBox?

[Felsir]

I'm looking at a mini PC to put in my arcade cabinet. I like the idea of getting a pc that is proven to work and those miniPcs seem totally silent. I'm just not sure about the power.

I would like to emulate arcade classics, a few amiga games and future pinball. Model2 and Dreamcast would be nice (my DC died and my wife just loves Space Channel 5).
I like to be able to play some Steam games as well (giana sisters twisted dreams, mark of the ninja)- which is where my biggest concern is.
My screen's native resolution is 1920x1080 so will a minipc be able to pull that off? I've seen a ZBox with an Nvidia Ion chipset but I have trouble figuring out what the system would be capable of.

Any other ideas (Shuttle, Aopen) are welcomed!

[MTPPC]

I don't think you'll have the video horesepower or cpu to run future pinball on an ion.

[RyoriNoTetsujin]

I don't think you'll have the video horesepower or cpu to run future pinball on an ion.

Definitely this.

And you can forget about silence with anything but a passively cooled Z-Box, I bought my gf a Sandy Bridge Celeron based Z-Box (this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856173041) and you can hear the thing across a room. Big disappointment in that area.

That said, I can at least vouch for its Mame ability; you should have no problem with most classics/2D games, even with HLSL active. I had it running SF3:TS with HLSL like a boss.

If I were you, I'd just build a mini-ITX box around an Ivy Bridge i3 and slap a Noctua nh-l9i on it. I did something similar in this thread over here to much success: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,129277.msg1321896.html#msg1321896  Choose your parts carefully, and budget-wise I'm sure you could get close to Z-Box pricing, and have significantly more power.

[Felsir]

Hmm, thanks for the input. I'll reconsider and get components to build a small PC instead.

[Felsir]

A followup on this. I decided to get components and build a PC instead. If anyone is wondering wether to get a miniPC like the ZBox, I got these components for 300 euro's (~$390).

Asus P8H61-M mainboard
Intel Core i3 3220
4GB DDR3 Kinston
450watt PSU
Radeon HD6670
1TB harddrive

It can run my MAME games, Future Pinball in 1920x1080 and my steam games. I have yet to try the more complex emulators (Supermodel etc.) but I'm really happy with the current performance I'm getting.
As a bonus- the mainboard has the bios setting to make the PC boot when the mainboard receives power- which is an awesome feature for arcade cabinets with one-button-power-up.

[RyoriNoTetsujin]

Nice! Glad to hear you're happy with the results. 

Which brand of Radeon HD6670 did you get? I had been eyeing the Sapphire Ultimate (because it's passively cooled) for some time, before I settled in on the built-in gpu of my i5 (and that m350 case.)

[Felsir]

I have a HIS Radeon HD 6670 passive.
I monitored the temperatures using speedfan, and the temperature averaged 70 degrees celcius during pinball. If I leave the cabinet open, it's 60, so I'm thinking of adding a fan to get some airflow going. In all I'm happy with the systems performance and it is quite silent.