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Review: Gigabyte Brix S (GB-BXi5H-5200)

by Parm Mann on 11 March 2015, 08:00

Tags: Gigabyte (TPE:2376)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qacpq4

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Test Methodology

Comparison Systems

System Name Gigabyte Brix Gaming Gigabyte Brix Pro Gigabyte Brix S Intel NUC D54250WYK PC Specialist Magma A10 PC Specialist Vanquish Mini 130 Zotac Zbox Nano ID69 Plus Zotac Zbox Sphere OI520
CPU Intel Core i5-4200H @ up to 3.4GHz Intel Core i7-4770R @ up to 3.9GHz Intel Core i5-5200U @ up to 2.7GHz Intel Core i5-4250U @ up to 2.6GHz AMD A10-7850K @ up to 4.0GHz Intel Core i3-4130 @ 3.4GHz Intel Core i7-4500U @ up to 3.0GHz Intel Core i5-4200U @ up to 2.6GHz
CPU Cores / Threads 2 / 4 4 / 8 2 / 4 2 / 4 4 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4
CPU TDP 47W 65W 15W 15W 95W 54W 15W 15W
CPU Cooler Gigabyte Brix Gaming reference Gigabyte Brix Pro reference Gigabyte Brix S reference Intel NUC reference AMD reference Intel reference Zotac Zbox Nano reference Zotac Zbox Sphere reference
Motherboard Gigabyte M4HM8AP Gigabyte M4HM87P Gigabyte MQLP5AP NUC QS87 reference Asus A88XM-Plus Asus H81I-Plus Zotac reference Zotac reference
Memory G.Skill 8GB DDR3 (2x4GB) (added) G.Skill 8GB DDR3 (2x4GB) (added) Adata 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair 8GB DDR3 (2x4GB) (added) Kingston Hyper-X Beast 8GB DDR3 (2x4GB) Kingston Hyper-X Genesis 8GB DDR3 (2x4GB) Crucial 4GB DDR3 (1x4GB) Crucial 4GB DDR3 (1x4GB)
Memory Speed 11-11-11-28-1T @ 1,600MHz 11-11-11-28-1T @ 1,600MHz 11-11-11-28-1T @ 1,600MHz 11-13-13-30-2T @ 1,600MHz 11-1211-30-1T @ 2,133MHz 11-11-11-28-1T @ 1,600MHz 11-11-11-28-1T @ 1,600MHz 11-11-11-28-1T @ 1,600MHz
Integrated Graphics - Intel Iris Pro 5200 Intel HD 5500 Intel HD 5000 AMD Radeon R7 - Intel HD 4400 Intel HD 4400
Dedicated Graphics Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 6GB - - - - Palit GeForce GTX 660 2GB - -
Sound Card Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio
Primary Storage 180GB Intel mSATA SSD (added) 180GB Intel mSATA SSD (added) 120GB Kingston SSDNow mSATA SSD 128GB Plextor M5M mSATA SSD (added) 1TB Seagate ST1000DX001 SSHD 1TB Toshiba HDD 500GB Samsung ST500LM012 HDD 500GB Samsung ST500LM012 HDD
Secondary Storage - - 1TB Seagate Momentus HDD - - - - -
Optical Drive - - - - Samsung DVD Writer Lite-On DVD Writer - -
PSU Delta Electronics (180W, external) Gigabyte (135W, external) Asian Power Devices (65W, external) Intel NUC (65W, external) Corsair VS350 (350W, internal) Corsair VS450 (450W, internal) Delta Electronics (65W, external) Delta Electronics (65W, external)
Chassis Gigabyte Brix Gaming Gigabyte Brix Pro Gigabyte Brix S Intel NUC Aerocool DS Cube Red Edition Cooler Master Elite 130 Zotac Zbox Nano Zotac Zbox Sphere
Operating System Windows 8.1 (64-bit, added) Windows 8.1 (64-bit, added) Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Windows 8.1 (64-bit, added) Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Windows 8.1 (64-bit, added) Windows 8.1 (64-bit, added)
Standard Warranty Two years Two years One year (parts and labour) Two years Three years (one-year collect-and-return, one-year parts, three-year labour) Three years (one-year collect-and-return, one-year parts, three-year labour) Two years Two years
Approx. Build Cost £800 £750 £630 £450 £469 £550 £600 £420

CPU Benchmarks

HEXUS PiFast Our number-crunching PiFast test is used to benchmark the computational power of each system's CPU.
Cinebench Using Cinebench's multi-CPU render, this cross-platform benchmark stresses as many cores as possible.
HandBrake Free-to-use video encoder that stresses all CPU cores.

Memory and Storage Benchmarks

AIDA64 Benchmark that analyses memory bandwidth and latency.
CrystalDiskMark Popular free-to-use storage benchmark, used to gauge sequential performance and aggregated 4K QD32 speeds.

System and Gaming Benchmarks

PCMark 8 System-wide examination that uses the Home preset, run with OpenCL acceleration.
3DMark DX11, run at the Firestrike default test.
Aliens vs. Predator 1,920x1,080 resolution, 2xAA, 4xAF, medium quality.

Miscellaneous Benchmarks

Power Consumption Noted for system idling, under HandBrake video-transcoding load, and for GPU playing Aliens vs. Predator.
Temperature Noted for CPU idling, under HandBrake video-transcoding load, and for GPU playing Aliens vs. Predator.

Notes

We have a range of small PCs in our line up, and we're interested to see how the Brix S compares to the Intel NUC and Zbox Sphere - the latter two were equipped with similar CPUs based on previous-generation Intel technology.