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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:
--- Quote from: MTPPC on February 24, 2013, 01:11:16 am ---I don't think you'll have the video horesepower or cpu to run future pinball on an ion.
--- End quote ---
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.
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