ZOTAC ZBOX Giga ID70 Plus almost perfect HTPC

Looks interesting. Price is around $840-$890 according to this site. (actually everytime you hit refresh the price changes on this site so I have no idea what the actual price is). I hope this is incorrect. I think it needs to come in around $600 or so.

http://accessories.eracks.com/produc...a-id70-plus-u/

With Windows 7 you are looking at around $1000 for a system without a SSD and a small hard drive. Personally I think there are better options out there.

The biggest concern I have is Zotac. I have had horrible experiences with their products. They are on my do not buy again list.

Nice looking computer. When did they release this one?

Anybody know where we can purchase this?

they just released pricing and you can order from the site now.

its cheaper to build your own.

I don't get these companies, if they are gonna release products make them affordable!

they must have contracts with parts manufacturers they buy everything in bulk to get the prices down, but then they set their profit margins so high, that they price them higher than a HTPC build or same but with less power.

you would think they would set the prices lower that HTPC builds so people will consider them more.

900 dollars? 1000 dollars? you kidding me?

at 739? i think its very reasonable.

case habey 800 $80
Motherboard ZOTAC Z68ITX-B-E $220
4gb sodimm $20
2100T $135
320GB hd $90
remote ??

if you were to make it yourself with almost exact specs it comes out to around 545 (newegg prices) 600 with a remote??

A 140 dollar premium over one you can make yourself is not too much to ask for. Obviously I would love to have it at a lower price but the case/asthetics is worth the extra money. IMO.

Tried to order one last night but dammit it doesn't seem like they ship to Canada.

weilian, you forgot the $120 slot slim BD drive. I think this thing is a pretty good price, too.

Nice work Zotac - now if you can get your quality up...

ahh good point. makes this thing an awesome value.

Dear Zotac,

Please make a FM1 version (or FM2 etc) as it should handle the 65W TDP versions just fine considering the gpu is combined. Then you can make the main heatsink a bit larger and use a single bigger fan for less overall noise.

Overall nice design though.

Well, I finally bought one. Beautiful case. Everything works great, very capable machine. Only issue i have with it, is the noise the fan makes. Gotta find a solution for that.

Hi weilian, could you pls share where did you buy it from and if u found any solution on how to fix that fan noise.
Thanks,

Superbiiz has this in-stock for $699.99.

FWIW, I decided to see how much it would cost if *I* built something similar based on parts I have or could get fairly easily.

My build has the following:
Intel i3-2125 CPU
ASRock H67 mini-ITX motherboard
Habey EMC-800BL case w/ power supply,
Kingston 4GB RAM,
Kingston 64GB SSD,
Titan low-profile HSF
Sony BC-5600S Blu-ray drive
Windows 7 Home Premium.

The i3 comes from MicroCenter, the Blu-ray ODD I won off eBay and it's a pull from a Dell and the O/S is from the Window 7 Family Pack that I have. The only thing really on sale was the SSD but still at $1/GB which is pretty easily found now.

$477.03 w/ tax & shipping

Even with a OEM Windows license, i3-2105 from an internet retailer and new Blu-ray I don't think it's even going to touch $600. I also know it doesn't have a noisy fan.

All that plus, most importantly, its not a Zotac.

Implied and agreed wholeheartedly .

I purchased it locally from ncix. 770 taxes in.


Ya, i opened it up to see which fans where making a lot of noice, turned out it was the gpu/chipset heatsink fan. I adjusted the speedsettings in the bios and lowered the max speed and its good now. Its not absoletely silent but thats expected.



you're missing a media controller and a gt430 bringing you closer to 6 now.

However the solution you presented is an excellent one and one i weighed against the id70. But the id70 comes packaged very nicely, better than the habey. I opted for the id70 cause its clean, hassle free, quick and easy. And pricing something out similar to that of the id70 on newegg is not that much cheaper.

Zotac z68itx-b 210
Rosewell Ir remote 25
I3 2120t 130
Wdc 320gb. 75
Habey 800 76
4gb kingston sodimm 30
Slimtype bluray 106 (40 on ebay)

Around 660 before shipping and tax.

So 660 before tax vs 690 before tax, it was a no brainer for me.

Very clean looking machine, bluray drive on the bottom, multi-card reader to the top. Missing from this picture is the, power adapter, vga to dvi adapter, Driver CD and the PowerDVD 10 CD. Otherwise this is everything you get out of the box.




The under side houses two hard drivers and the bluray drive. My unit came with a WD blue scorpio. I dropped in another WD blue scorpio I had laying around. The bluray combo drive is a LiteON DL-4ETS.


The gpu fan was noisy with its default smart fan settings but after some adjustment it is now decently quiet however not silent. The motherboard is the Zotac z68itx-b-e; A comprehensive review here.


So that's it. It is simply the Zotac z68itx-b dropped in a very nice aluminum case along with some nice haves. 690 before tax was what it cost me from a local shop. I have it inside a drawer and temperatures are around 50 degC during normal use.

Thanks for the write-up weilian.

Agreed. Thanks for the pictures and write-up. I hope it works well for you and you enjoy it.

Thanks for the excellent writeup! We are looking for a great "out-of-the-box" micro HTPC with slot Blu-ray for our office. Will this playback perfect 1080p video?

Are their any other units, like this we should consider?

Handles 1080p without issue. Take a look at asrock mini pc offerings for alternatives.

Four fans in such a small unit is recipe for trouble. I like what Zotac is trying to do here (creating a motherboard with integrated external GPU), but ASRock's single fan cooling is much better from a noise perspective (as well as power consumption).

Let us see if Zotac creates an updated version of this unit using Ivy Bridge / Kepler GPU (It looks like ASRock has shifted to Ivy Bridge / AMD's GCN for their high end unit this generation).

We LOVE this unit but have waited for an Ivy Bridge upgrade - stock seems low which could be a sign of a refresh?

Any rumors on when?

Scott
Edited by anywhereanytime - 7/7/12 at 4:58pm

The Zotac website lists both the ID70+ and the ID72+ as having Intel Core i2 2100T processors - these ARE Sandy Bridge processors. The ID70+ includes a graphics card and a Blu-ray drive. The ID72+ uses the on-chip Intel 2000 graphics, but has a slot-load DVD drive.

+1 for the great write-up weilian!

 

How's Windows 8 treating you IRT to usability from an HTPC standpoint (codecs, drivers, playback software, etc)?

sorry for the late reply, didnt notice the question.

I was using the preview version when i purchased the id70 and have since updated to the retail version of windows 8. Everything works fine, drivers and all. Haven't had an issue with anything. No stability issues with video/audio playback or anything else.