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Quiet PC Zeno NT-H67 Fanless PC review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £1318
inc VAT

It's small and silent, but you pay a huge premium for the peace and quiet

Specifications

3.1GHz Intel Core i3-2100, 8GB RAM, N/A display, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Most PCs produce too much noise to ever be a comfortable addition to your sitting room. This is usually the result of the fans required to cool your case, graphics card and processor. You can lessen the effect with special noise-reducing cases or sound-deadening foam, but these can be expensive and don’t eliminate all noise.

Quiet PC Zeno NT-H67 Fanless PC

Quiet PC’s Zeno NT-H67 is entirely passively cooled, so makes no noise at all. It’s also compact – at just 100x290x270mm, it’s not much larger than a magazine so should fit on your TV stand. The only moving parts are in the slim laptop Blu-ray drive and the 2.5in hard disk, but you can only hear the hard disk if you put your ear against the case, so you definitely won’t hear it from your sofa.

The whole case is a giant heat sink for the processor. Copper pipes lead from a small cooling block over the CPU to the case’s solid metal sides, which are covered in cooling fins. The 3.1GHz Core i3 processor won’t break any performance records, but it’s easily powerful enough for a home entertainment PC, with an overall score of 60 in our tests. Core i3 processors use Intel’s integrated HD Graphics 2000, rather than the more powerful HD Graphics 3000 found on some Core i5 and i7 CPUs, so 3D gaming isn’t really an option – our Dirt 3 test wouldn’t run at our laptop settings of 1,280 x 720 with High detail and 4x anti-aliasing, let alone at the 1080p settings we normally use for PCs.

Quiet PC Zeno NT-H67 Fanless PC inside

It’s fine playing back 1080p high-definition content, though, and if it’s entertainment you’re looking for, you’ll be pleased to find a Blackgold DVB-T2 TV tuner occupying the microATX motherboard’s only PCI slot. This is a dual HD DVB tuner, so you can watch and record TV at the same time, including HD TV channels. The Blu-ray drive gives you access to high-definition discs and the 1TB hard disk means you’ve got a decent amount of space for media storage. Two HDMI ports and one VGA port can be used with up to two monitors, projectors or TVs simultaneously.

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Basic Specifications

Rating ***
Processor Intel Core i3-2100
Processor external bus 100MHz (DMI)
Processor multiplier x31
Processor clock speed 3.1GHz
Processor socket LGA1155
Memory 8
Memory type PC3-10666
Maximum memory 16GB
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-H67N-USB3-B3
Motherboard chipset Intel H67

Ports

USB2 ports (front/rear) 0/6
Firewire ports (front/rear) 0/0
eSATA ports (front/rear) 0/1
Wired network ports 1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support none

Internal Expansion

Case media centre PC
PCI-E x1 slots (free) 0 (0)
PCI-E x16 slots (free) 1 (0)
Free Serial ATA ports 2
Free memory slots 0
Free 3.5in drive bays 0

Hard Disk

Hard disk model(s) Western Digital Caviar (WD10JPVT-00A1YT0)
Interface SATA2
Total storage capacity 1,000GB

Graphics

Graphics card(s) Intel HD Graphics 2000
Graphics/video ports VGA, 2x HDMI

Sound

Sound Realtek ALC889
Sound outputs 7.1 line out, coaxial S/PDIF out, optical S/PDIF out, mic in
Speakers none

Removable Drives

Supported memory cards none
Optical drive type(s) DVD+/-RW +/-DL, BD-R/RE

Display

Screen model none
Native resolution N/A
Screen inputs N/A

Other Hardware

Keyboard none
Mouse none

Software

Software included Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5
Operating system Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Operating system restore option Windows disc

Buying Information

Warranty one year RTB
Price £1,318
Details www.quietpc.com

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