GIGABYTE's Haswell BRIX Lineup Updated with BRIX s Models
by Ganesh T S on October 31, 2013 11:30 AM EST
Very few products excite us enough to request the manufacturer to provide us with an engineering sample or demo model. The Intel NUC category has been particularly interesting as it provides us with an insight into where the traditional casual / home use desktop market might end up.
The ultra-compact form factor (UCFF) for PCs was originally championed by VIA Technologies with their nano-ITX (12cm x 12cm) and pico-ITX (10 cm x 7.2cm) boards. Zotac was one of the first to design a custom UCFF motherboard (size between nano-ITX and pico-ITX) for the ZBOX nano XS AD11 based on AMD Brazos. The motherboard was approximately 10cm x 10cm. Intel made this motherboard size a 'standard' with the introduction of the Intel NUC boards in May 2012.
GIGABYTE took the NUC concept and designed their own board and chassis in the BRIX lineup. At Computex 2013, Ian talked to them and found out that an AMD Kabini based version was also in the works. Last month, at IDF, we had the official launch of the Haswell-based BRIX units. The interesting aspect of the Haswell BRIX is the fact that it has become available for purchase prior to the Intel Haswell NUC. We now have full pricing details for most of the models:
| BRIX Model | GB-BXi7-4500 | GB-BXi5-4200 | GB-BXi3-4010 | GB-BXCE-2955 |
| Intel Processor | Intel® Core™ | Intel® Core™ | Intel® Core™ | Intel® Celeron |
| i7-4500U | i5-4200U | i3-4010U | 2955U | |
| IGP | Intel HD 4400 | Intel HD 4400 | Intel HD 4400 | Intel HD |
| Cores | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Threads | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| Clock Frequency | 1.8GHz – 3.0GHz | 1.6 GHz – 2.6GHz | 1.7 GHz | 1.4 GHz |
| Audio Codec | Realtek ALC269 | Realtek ALC269 | Realtek ALC269 | Realtek ALC269 |
| Expansion | 1x mSATA | 1x mSATA | 1x mSATA | 1x mSATA |
| 1x mPCIe (WiFi) | 1x mPCIe (WiFi) | 1x mPCIe (WiFi) | 1x mPCIe (WiFi) | |
| Memory | 2 x SO-DIMM | 2 x SO-DIMM | 2 x SO-DIMM | 2 x SO-DIMM |
| DDR3 1.35 V | DDR3 1.35 V | DDR3 1.35 V | DDR3 1.35 V | |
| LAN | Realtek RTL8111G | Realtek RTL8111G | Realtek RTL8111G | Realtek RTL8111G |
| Pricing | $530 | $390 | $300 | NA |
We visited Gigabyte at IDF and requested a BRIX sample for a quick overview. They supplied us with their IDF demo model (design and components slightly different from the official SKUs that are already shipping ). Our review sample came with a Core i3-4100U (1.8 GHz) CPU, a 320 GB Western Digital Blue HDD [ WD3200LPVX ] and a single-band Realtek RTL8723 802.11n mPCI-e WLAN adapter.
The demo model has a slightly higher profile (height of 4.3cm compared to the 3cm for the standard BRIX). This configuration (with space for a 2.5" drive) will be sold as the BRIX s, and is slated to hit the shelves towards the end of November. Obviously, the system will be sold barebone (users can install their own 2.5" SSD), but the Realtek WLAN module (the shipping version will have a dual band version unlike what we currently have in the IDF demo model) will be bundled with the system.
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XZerg - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
why no eSata? That alone is a deal breaker for me as there can only be msata in the system. With BRIX s, at least that is a bit more alleviated. Note: USB3 is great but it suffers while doing lot of small IO.i presume these systems have the cpus soldered - Ganesh can you confirm? If not that would be great when the BRIX s is out.
XZerg - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
i found out the cpus are bga and so soldered. damn...ghm3 - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
I doubt there's much demand for eSATA anymore, especially with Thunderbolt starting to mature more. 20Gbps is a nice step up from 3Gbps (unless I'm mistaken eSATA never moved to 6Gbps SATA III speeds). That much bandwidth makes daisy-chaining quite feasible without any performance hit, so I'd personally like to see wider Thunderbolt peripheral adoption.ZeDestructor - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
eSATA moved along. My Sabertooth Z77 has it and I use it decently often to access external disks via a dock.izmanq - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
i'm more interested in AMD ones, where are they ?nomaddave - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
These don't seem like a good value for the specs. Do I miss something here, or is it all about the convenience of the form factor?ghm3 - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
Convenience is almost always more costly. Mobile parts are pricey. This is basically an ultrabook in a box instead of in a laptop; the tray price alone for the i7-4300u is $398.gevorg - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
"This configuration (with space for a 2.5" drive)"How will the 2.5" drive connect, isn't this mSATA only?
XZerg - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
read carefully... there is a BRIX "s" version which will support the 2.5" drive.i am hoping to see a quad core cpu in such a format with the 2.5" drive.
Lonyo - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
Regular BRIX will only have mSATA, but the BRIX S will have a SATA port on the motherboard, possibly in addition to mSATA. There are pics floating around on the internet of the SATA port enabled "S".