Few companies have as much experience with small PCs as Zotac, so we were excited when the MEK1 arrived. This mini-ITX machine is taller and thinner than your average cube, and it promises more gaming power. Its angular, vented design certainly looks the part. Parallel bands of RGB LEDs run from under the case over the front and across the roof. They can be customised using Zotac’s Spectra software, which can be used to select lighting modes, and monitor CPU and GPU temperatures and fan speeds. The MEK1’s is also quite stylish.
The Zotac pairs its illuminated design with solid versatility. At the rear are four USB 3 ports, five audio jacks and two Ethernet ports. At the front are USB ports, audio jacks and a large power button behind a sliding door. We have no concerns about build quality either. The side panels are made from plastic, but they’re sturdy – no doubt helped by the mass of metal beneath. Zotac also includes stands to improve vertical stability. It’s easy to access the insides, too.
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Remove the side panels, though, and it’s all function over form. The CPU is hidden beneath a plain, low-profile cooler, and there are coloured cables everywhere, with a daughterboard used to hook up the lighting. On the other side of the motherboard, an extension connects the full-sized graphics card to the single 16x PCI-E slot. It’s great to see Zotac using a SilverStone SFX PSU, though, which cuts down on space but still sports an 80 Plus Bronze PSU rating.
The amount of metal and cabling makes it tricky to access the hard disk, memory and graphics card – but that’s hardly a surprise with such tight confines. Nevertheless, Zotac’s machine strikes a good balance between smaller dimensions and the space required to build a proper gaming rig. It’s 118mm wide and 418mm tall, which makes it far smaller than a full-sized gaming rig – the CyberPower Infinity X66 GTX Pro, for example, which uses the same, measures 224mm wide and 471mm tall.
The Zotac GTX 1070 Ti in the MEK1 is a full-sized card, and Nvidia’s latest Pascal part is basically a cut-down GeForce GTX 1080, with 2,432 stream processors. The card runs at stock speeds, with the base clock of 1607MHz boosting beyond 1800MHz, and the memory rattling along at 8008MHz (effective).
That’s amazing GPU power for a mini machine, but the MEK1’s tight confines mean the spec is cut back elsewhere. The Intel Kaby Lake Core i7-7700, for instance, is a good enough processor with four 3.6GHz cores, but it can’t be overclocked, and Intel’s latest top-end Coffee Lake chips have six cores.
Meanwhile, there’s 16GB (2 x 8GB) of dual-channel DDR4 memory, but it’s clocked to a middling frequency of 2400MHz. On the plus side, the 240GB NVMe SSD should be fast, and there’s a 1TB 2.5in hard disk for extra storage. Zotac rounds off the specification with dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support.
The MEK1 is protected by a two-year warranty, which is reasonable for a big-brand gaming PC, but we often see better deals from UK system builders. However, the MEK1 is also one of the only gaming PCs we’ve reviewed that comes with a keyboard and mouse, and it’s respectable gear as well.
The keyboard uses loud and clicky CherryMX Blue switches. The buttons are fast and have ample travel, although the keycaps are surprisingly light and a little wobbly. Elsewhere, the blue backlight works with numerous effects, and the Windows key can be disabled. Meanwhile, the mouse has a pair of thumb buttons and DPI switches above the smooth scroll wheel, but it’s very light and the buttons are a little soft. It’s okay for a free mouse, but serious gamers will want to upgrade it.
Zotac MEK1 review: Performance
The GTX 1070 Ti is excellent, although the lesser CPU puts the MEK1 slightly behind the aforementioned CyberPower PC. It handled every game with solid results at 1080p and 2,560 x 1,440, but it was 5fps behind the CyberPower in Fallout 4 and a similar distance in Deus Ex, with the gaps widening a tad in The Witcher 3. That said, the Zotac is hardly slow. The MEK1 will play current games at 1080p and 2,560 x 1,440, and it has enough power for VR headsets. It won’t handle 4K smoothly, but neither will any GTX 1070 Ti rig.
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The difference in processor speed and architecture is evident in application benchmarks. Compared with the overclocked six-core Coffee Lake Core i5 chip in the CyberPower, the i7-7700 was 16,000 points behind in the single-core image editing test, and a massive 144,795 points behind in our heavily multi-threaded Handbrake video-encoding test.
The Zotac machine’s overall score of 111,268 isn’t bad – it won’t bottleneck most games and it will handle most other tasks, but it’s a world away from the CyberPower’s Coffee Lake chip. On the plus side, the Zotac’s SSD read and write speeds of 2,744MB/sec and 1,552MB/sec are fantastic.
The Zotac performed admirably in thermal tests too. The CPU and GPU peak delta Ts of 63°C and 58°C are fine. It’s just as quiet as full-sized gaming PCs when running games, and even a full-system stress test only saw the fans produce a subtle rumble. There were no throttling issues either, with solid CPU speed seen throughout testing, and the GPU running regularly at 1800MHz and beyond.
Zotac MEK1 review: Verdict
By avoiding the temptation to make this PC as small as possible, and scaling upwards to reduce the footprint, Zotac has avoided many of the issues that afflict mini-ITX machines. The full-sized GTX 1070 Ti delivers good gaming pace and the case’s moderate height means the MEK1 stays cool and quiet. The other components are fine, and the case has customisable LEDs and a slick, sturdy design. The MEK1 even has reasonable peripherals for the price.
You pay a price in terms of CPU performance, but the 3.6GHz Core i7-7700 still offers enough power for most people’s needs. Our only other criticisms are the lowly memory clock and the ugly interior. Nevertheless, it’s great to see innovative mini PC design that delivers on its promise, making the Zotac a satisfying alternative if you don’t want a full-sized system.