By Kevin Lee
MSI may have just announced its Backpack PC, but Zotac has been way ahead of its untethered virtual reality game since April. Fittingly named the VR Backpack, it’s a slightly more capable system, but it’s also a little rougher around the edges.
For starts the VR Backpack isn’t quite as polished as the MSI Backpack PC and its custom made hard case shell. Instead, Zotac essentially created a shrunken Mini ITX PC, threw into a mesh bag with a huge battery, hooked up a HTC Vive and call it a day.
I’m being a bit coy here but there are definitely some rough edges to the VR Backpack including slightly exposed heatsinks. Of course, this is only a prototype unit and Zotac plans on iterating on it in the future.
Packing desktop power
Aesthetics aside, Zotac’s take on the portable VR-ready system is a bit more powerful thanks to using a desktop grade Intel Core i5-6400 CPU as opposed to the Backpack PC mobile-based Core i7. That said, the two machines share the same MXM version of a Nvidia GTX 980, making them more than capable of powering a VR experience.
Zotac’s solution …read more
Source:: techradar.com – PC and Mac