Zotac ZBOX CA320 nano PLUS Review: A Fanless AMD mini-PC
by Ganesh T S on November 26, 2014 2:00 PM ESTFinal Words
The Zotac ZBOX CA320 nano provided us with the first opportunity to evaluate a passively cooled mini-PC based on an AMD APU. Passively cooled systems are either very costly (particularly if they integrate powerful CPUs) or downright abysmal in performance (when they integrate the low-end / low-power CPUs such as the older Atoms). Zotac's offering with the ZBOX CA320 nano aims to strike a balance. $175 for a barebones configuration is quite reasonable for this type of system. With the bundled SSD and RAM, it is still less than $300.
One of the aspects we were worried about was thermal throttling, but the ZBOX CA320 nano surpassed our expectations. The chassis never got extremely hot (reaching only around 55 C, even after extended thermal stress with a couple of power viruses).
Pretty much the only downside of the unit is the relatively bad single-threaded performance of the AMD A6-1450's CPU cores and the HTPC aspects of the AMD GPU drivers. The clock rates are a bit low. Given the thermal headroom that seems to be available, Zotac could have been a tad more adventurous in overclocking. While the BIOS managed to pull up the DRAM frequency, the APU itself was clocked as per specifications. However, we shouldn't be really complaining since the system seems to operate quite nicely for day-to-day use. The SSD could be a bit better, but that is not an issue if the end-user buys a barebones configuration.
All in all, Zotac manages to deliver a very price-effective passive mini-PC in the ZBOX CA320 nano. Along with the ECS LIVA in the market, the days of users having to spend an arm and leg for passively cooled systems with decent performance are history. Zotac also has a Bay Trail-based ZBOX CI320 nano in the fanless C series, and we will be looking at that system next month.
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Mumrik - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
So what is the argument against building a NAS based on something like this instead of playing for a 4-bay QNAP/Synology product?It doesn't really seem more expensive, and the power efficiency looks decent.
wintermute000 - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
how? you mean with USB (ugh)?Teknobug - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
Now why would I pick this over the other faness Zotac with i5 4210Y?CharonPDX - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
Because the Zotac costs twice as much?If this meets your needs, then this wins, hands down, purely on price. Obviously, there are many use cases where this fails miserably, and the more expensive Zotac becomes the better option.
tential - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
The J1900 Zotac box seems to be a better fit. The review of it prices it close to this except they used a pricier SSD I believe. The box was priced at $170 and you can get RAM/SSD for $100 to match the price of this. And that Zotac box has better performance HTPC wise.duploxxx - Thursday, November 27, 2014 - link
that J1900 zotax box fails at almost exactly the same HTPC levels. no 4K or 1080.60. SO turn the Q around, why would you always select the intel over the AMD knowing that in the end you screw yourself if there is no more competition.don't understand why today they bring a temash based solution.
ultimatexbmc.com - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
Niceyannigr2 - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
Temash..... Temash? I have been waiting to see an AMD box like this and it comes with Temash? It's almost 2015. Where is Mullins?sonicmerlin - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
I wish someone would release a $100 Atom box that had a cable card slot.kgh00007 - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
Nice! Any chance you could get the CI320 with Windows 8.1 Bing?And will you be getting the Alienware Alpha in for review?