Any guesses if this mini-pc is noisy? Zotac ZBOX IQ01 with i7-4770T 45w

[smakme7757]

I'm looking at picking up one of these
http://www.zotac.com/products/mini-...er/DESC/amount/10/section/specifications.html

I'm just not sure what the noise would be like. The CPU is a 45w model. There is another model that costs the same with an i7-4770R which is 65w, but i think that is too hot.

Anyone have any ideas?

I guess while I'm at it, anyone had any experience with these Zotac boxes?

 

[NTMBK]

My girlfriend has one with a 35W Sandy Bridge i3. It's a lovely little box. You can certainly hear the fans going when its on, but it's not distracting; you can happily watch films on it without noticing fan noise. Not sure how much different the extra 10W would make; probably depends on whether you give it a heavy multithreaded workload.

Make sure you get the barebones version, not the "Plus" with HDD and RAM installed. They tend to be terrible value, and choose awful RAM and HDD.

 

[smakme7757]

My girlfriend has one with a 35W Sandy Bridge i3. It's a lovely little box. You can certainly hear the fans going when its on, but it's not distracting; you can happily watch films on it without noticing fan noise. Not sure how much different the extra 10W would make; probably depends on whether you give it a heavy multithreaded workload.

Make sure you get the barebones version, not the "Plus" with HDD and RAM installed. They tend to be terrible value, and choose awful RAM and HDD.

Thanks for the feedback, appreciated.
It's the barebones model I'm looking at.

Good to know the 35w model isn't too loud. I can't imagine the 45w being too much louder.

 

[aigomorla]

I love the Zbox... i have one vesa mounted to my HDTV.

They are small.

Built on the ITX-Thin platform:

Uses a GPU style blower sink to cool the Board + CPU.

Under most conditions they are fairly quiet.
However if you put them on load, they sound like GPU's.

 

[alcoholbob]

Most small PCs use something like 40mm or 60mm fans that will sound like the old school "Delta" fans under load. If you want HTPC performance that's whisper quiet you are going to have to build your own htpc, or pay a lot for a proprietary design using heat pipes to cool the CPU. Although both cases will be substantially bigger than these little mini PC buggers. Good passive heat dissipation requires size.

 

[smakme7757]

I love the Zbox... i have one vesa mounted to my HDTV.

They are small.

Built on the ITX-Thin platform:

Uses a GPU style blower sink to cool the Board + CPU.

Under most conditions they are fairly quiet.
However if you put them on load, they sound like GPU's.

Thanks for posting that. Seems like a decent build.

Quite a few people have said good things about these boxes.

Most small PCs use something like 40mm or 60mm fans that will sound like the old school "Delta" fans under load. If you want HTPC performance that's whisper quiet you are going to have to build your own htpc, or pay a lot for a proprietary design using heat pipes to cool the CPU. Although both cases will be substantially bigger than these little mini PC buggers. Good passive heat dissipation requires size.

That's true. I specced out a design with a Fractal Design node 304 case, i7-4790, 16GB ram, psu and h97 motherboard which came in at around $75 more expensive than a zbox with 16GB ram.

However the node 304 is quite a bit larger than the miniature zbox.