One of the most obvious differences between PCs and game consoles is that you can't practically set up a full-sized PC in your living room and use it with your big-screen TV. On the other hand though, consoles lock you in to their ecosystems and aren't very versatile. Enter Zotac, one of the world's best known Nvidia partners, with its Zbox Magnus series of compact PCs designed specifically to fit in where no ordinary PC would be welcome.
With a device like this, Zotac hopes it's giving you the best of both worlds. You get the flexibility of a gaming PC, and the convenience of a console. The company sells these boxes as barebones, which means you get only the motherboard, CPU and GPU which are pretty much fixed and not upgradable. You have to add your own storage, RAM and OS.
The current Zbox Magnus range comprises of models built around mobile versions of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1060, 1070 and 1080 GPUs. Note that Nvidia has dispensed with the M suffix for its mobile parts – you're still getting slightly constrained versions of each. We have with us today the smallest and most affordable of the trio, the Zbox Magnus EN1060.