Zotac has developed a custom Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti card with a unique twist – it doesn’t need a power cable. The new card is found in Zotac’s new ZBox Magnus mini PC, which has just been tested by Hong Kong tech site HKEPC. Dismantling the system reveals a one-of-a-kind power delivery system, which uses a hybrid PCIe interface to feed its graphics card.
The secret sauce is a custom PCIe slot that connects the motherboard and graphics card. While this slot looks like any regular x16 PCIe interface, it’s built differently and split into two segments. The first eight lanes carry data – and likely some power – while the remaining eight lanes feed the card a 19V power supply.
The latter part effectively replaces the missing 8-pin cable, providing the card with all the power it needs. Short of Asus’ fancy GC-HPWR connector, this is the next best system if you want to make a true cable-free card. While this method cuts the available bandwidth in half, eight PCIe 5.0 lanes are enough for a mid-range graphics card with this level of performance. It also comes equipped with 16GB of VRAM, meaning it won’t need to transfer game textures too often. The important part here is that Zotac’s hybrid slot is capable of delivering the 180W needed by the card, plus an extra 11% to cover overclocking.
To take full advantage of the capabilities of the RTX 5060 Ti, Zotac opted for a 20-core Core Ultra 7 255HX mobile CPU, housing eight P-cores clocked up to 5.2GHz, plus 12 E-cores, and it’s coupled with up to 96GB of 5,600MT/s DDR5 SO-DIMM memory. You will also find two M.2 slots for SSDs, plus a dedicated Wi-Fi slot. Both memory and storage can be easily accessed after removing two screws.
Meanwhile, cooling is handled by two distinct modules. A smaller one consists of a copper base plus a blower fan for the CPU, while a larger one combines heatpipes with a vapour chamber and two blower fans to cool the GPU and VRAM.
The result of all this is a 2.65-litre Mini-PC that packs desktop-level performance, despite its tiny size. You have to pay a premium for it, though. The Zotac Magnus EN275060TC is available for €1,408 (ex VAT) for just a barebone package. Custom graphics power or not, that’s a lot of money for an RTX 5060 Ti rig.
