Up close with the Zotac Mek 1 and Magnus gaming PCs at CES

Here at CES 2018, gaming PC supplier Zotac showed off a pair of pretty small gaming PCs. The first is the Mek 1, a VR-ready SFF (small form factor) computer that fits up to a GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card and comes with a Core i7 processor, 16GB of memory, 1TB of storage, a 240GB boot drive and more in its vertically oriented frame. 

It's under 5 inches thick -- and the GTX 1070 Ti model should ship for under $1,400 this month (about £1,035 or AU$1,790).

But that's not the fun part of the Mek 1.

The fun part is how you have to pry open the computer's eyelid...

...and poke it in the eye to power it on. Seriously!

Zotac says the PC has a dedicated chamber for the graphics card, to keep it thermally isolated from the rest of the computer. It'll fit up to a 12-inch dual-slot graphics cards if you want to swap it out, though you'll need to keep the total system power under 450 watts (or swap out the power supply too).

The Mek 1 comes with a mechanical gaming keyboard, mouse and touchpad in the box too.

The switches are off-brand, but they're supposed to resemble the popular Cherry MX Blue.

Here's the mouse and mousepad that come with the computer.

Zotac also showed off a larger version of its Magnus mini-gaming PC that now fits a GTX 1080 graphics card as well. 

The new Magnus is light enough to lift and easily carry around.

One last pic, with a look at the ports you get on the bigger Magnus.