Gadgetory

- Hey guys, this is Austin. We've taken a look at a lot of crazy and over the top setups, but this new monitor might just take the cake. But, before we get started, I wanna give a huge shout to today's sponsor, Varidesk. So this is my editing setup. Now I like to sit down and get some work done, but after a few hours I really do start feel unhealthy, which is where the Varidesk comes in. All you do is grab by the handles and pull it up, and it smoothly transitions into being a full standing setup. The flexibility really does help me to feel more focused and productive, so definitely be sure to check out the ProDesk series at the link below, and again, huge shout out to Varidesk for sponsoring this video. So you may recall a video we did last year on a 49 inch super ultra-wide Samsung monitor. Now I really like that for gaming, but the problem was that the screen resolution was a little bit low. Sure the actual screen size was massive. It's basically like having two 27 inch panels sort of glued together, but with basically only a 4K by 2K resolution, as soon as you got outside of a game it got very blurry very quick. Where as with this, this brings things up a notch. Really the main advantage here is, that this should be much higher resolution. So essentially opposed to having a pair of 1080p monitors that are glued together, instead we have something which is essentially equivalent to a pair of 27 inch 1440p displays. Here normally there's a lot of really weird useless things in the box, but this handling guide actually seems very relevant, because this monitor is enormous. I actually don't know how I'm going to get it out. Oh, that's actually kind of cool. So it comes with a USB-C cable in the box, which I guess you can drive the full 5K resolution over USB-C. Okay I gotta try that. I also have a DisplayPort, HDMI all that kind of fun stuff. The only downside with this monitor is that you need to have a properly huge desk to support it. I mean that's just not gonna fit anywhere. Hey guys, today we have the world's largest monitor. (laughs) I feel like I'm in the thumbnail right now. Can you move that foam so I can set this on the table? Okay, so with this giant monitor out of the box, next up is to actually power it, and that is where this comes in. So this is the Zotac MEK Mini. And what better way to pair a giant monitor than with a tiny super powerful gaming PC. See we have a great sense of irony here. At least Ken does. So we've looked at a lot of weird and interesting Zotac systems over the years. This is actually one of the most interesting ones that has caught my eye in quite a while. So inside what you're getting here is a pretty properly powerful gaming computer, but in a very very small chassis. Awe, it's so cute. So inside this guy, not only do we have a proper Core i7-8700 processor, but there's even a full GTX- sorry RTX 2070. I'm going to keep saying GTX like forever, you realize that right? Slide? Oh, there we go. Wow, that is- that is packed. Okay, so we've got a two Terabyte hard drive as well as what I believe is a 256 gig SSD. We have what looks to be 16 gigs of memory, and a fan. What is on this side? So I guess it makes sense that you have easy access to most of your upgradeable parts on this side. I'm curious. I see a few fans inside. How do I open this? Oh, there's a giant not for resale sign on the bottom, AKA this is a review unit, don't open it up dumb-- Well actually that's probably not a direct quote from Zotac, but we all know what they mean when they send me something. Oh, that's why it's so small. It has dual external power supplies. So these are each 230 watts, so actually that sounds about right. 460 watt power supply for something of this caliber. So with everything fired up, the first thing I had to say is this MEK Mini is actually pretty cool, although I keep wanting to say Mac Mini. The MEK Mini. Now It's hard to get a good idea of the scope of this thing. When you put it side by side with a full sized graphics card, it really does things in perspective. This is a lot of performance in a tiny chassis, and generally speaking it actually does perform pretty well. Now yes, it does get a little bit loud especially under load and it gets a little bit bursty, so sometimes the fans kind of erratically go from like 100 percent down to like 40 percent, which is a little bit on the noisy side. The important thing is, is that even though you have such a tiny form factor, you're not giving up that performance. You get a decent selection of ports including USB-C as well as a pair of Ethernet jacks, one of which does have a Killer NIC inside. But really the main advantage here is just having a computer that is so tiny. Yeah, the power supplies being external is a little bit annoying, but for this kind of form factor it's really not something you can very easily build on your own. Now at $1,600 it is not the cheapest system in the world, but realistically I can see a lot of people who are interested in a very small form factor build, going with something like the MEK Mini. And importantly, it also has plenty of power to handle our giant ultra wide display. Once you get past the sheer size of this display, one of the main things that separates it from the Samsung is, which I was a really big fan of, is just the screen quality itself. Now sure, the resolution does make a big difference, but it's also a very bright panel. I mean right now we're at like 20 something percent brightness, but if I make Ken really upset here, crank it all the way up. Look how bright this thing gets. Can you see how bright that is? Like it is like eye searingly bright, and that might be a slight exaggeration. But I believe this is HDR, what like 600 rated or something? Now I do think Samsung has a newer version of their display which is probably going to be a lot closer, but just looking at this thing in person, it is seriously nice. And of course, it does have that full 5120x1440 resolution. Dude this is ridiculous. This is a 2:1 video and look how tiny it is on this display. Also something I want to mention here, the speakers are actually not that bad. - [Austin On Monitor] What it really comes down to with memes, is formatting. A lot of memes are just-- - With this much screen real estate, this is a multitasker's dream. I mean there is no need to have two monitors when you can fit basically two 1440p windows side by side, and especially if you're working with things like docs or spreadsheets. You can have so much information all at your fingertips. Although I guess it's always at your fingertips. More like all of this information at your eyeballs? But of course you're not watching this video for a mere multitasking display. What you want to see is gaming. And what's cool about this, is that it is actually so much wider than most panels that a lot of things like loading screens aren't even fully meant for this. It's a full 32:9 aspect ratio. Okay, yeah this definitely works. Dude that is so wide. You know it's actually pretty impressive. The MEK Mini is able to handle a full 5K by 1440 resolution pretty well. Full up on max settings, obviously I'm just here in the loading screen, but we're at somewhere around 50 frames per second. You know what else is nice about this display? Just how wide it is. I mean there's so much screen real estate, and literally I have to look up, left and right. Like this would be really cool if you had like something like a flight sim or a driving game. It really does feel like instead of using a VR headset, you can just sit right here and be immersed. In fact sitting this close is actually almost too much. I'm gonna get serious. I'm gonna win a game of Fortnite with the super ultra wide display and my awesome little MEK ultra. Definitely what I'm going to do right now is win a game. (laughs) An excellent start. I landed somewhere and someone hasn't shot me yet. Really a key to my stealth technique is to make as much noise as possible so they're all afraid of me. (yells) What the-- So while having a giant display and overpowered gaming PC is nice, sadly it does not improve your actual skill. Unless I maybe do a little bit more practice, you know, to confirm this. So one thing I'm actually not sure of, I haven't tried Apex yet, is how well it supports this ultra wide display. Which it seems to work fine, but some games actually straight up will not stretch out all the way. I mean you can see that we have black bars in this whole cinematic. But the main thing here is that a lot of games won't actually let you get a super wide field of view as it is a little bit of an unfair advantage, right? If you're using a monitor that's this big, you can see a little bit more around you if you're able to crank that FOV up. But it very much depends on which games you're actually playing whether or not you get an advantage or whether or not it even supports this resolution. The good news is, it looks like we're also able to play on epic settings at full resolution. I mean right now we're like 45 FPS, but it looks like it's supporting the field of view no problem, although actually I want to hit the ground and see. Oh, he looks like he's finding a gun right now. Yeah he found a gun. I'm gonna run away. Oh, it's a grenade. Nope, nope, no. No, running, running, running. See ya. Peace. Bye. Yeah don't miss. Easy for you to say-- Are They both dead? Oh no you don't. I'm out of bullets! I'm out of ammo! No, come on! No! So that my friends, that is how to play on a super ultra wide display as well as the MEK Mini. Realistically speaking, this monitor is awesome. It is so hard to go back to something that's normal, mere mortal size after playing with that kind of raw power and fury. If only it wasn't like over $1,000.