Upcoming GIGABYTE BRIX with GeForce GTX Inside
by Ian Cutress on April 23, 2014 10:11 AM EST
For the past 12-18 months, GIGABYTE’s BRIX platform has made inroads into the small form factor ecosystem with the help of Intel’s Haswell and AMD’s APUs under the hood. Ganesh recently had a look at the BRIX Pro, featuring a Crystal Well enabled Haswell processor with Iris Pro 5200 integrated graphics. We have also reported from press releases of BRIX models with discrete AMD mobile GPUs in the pipeline, resplendent in a deep red color. Naturally the next stage was to expect a green model featuring an NVIDIA GPU, at a private event in Las Vegas this week GIGABYTE has demonstrated just that.
Geoff from TR spotted this little cube at the event, sporting a 47W Core i5-4200H mobile CPU (dual core, hyperthreading, 2.8 GHz / 3.4 GHz turbo) and a GTX 760 inside. It is unclear if this is a mobile GTX 760M (768 CUDA cores at 657 MHz) or the full GTX 760 (1152 CUDA cores at 980 MHz) on a custom design. The 760M is rated ~55W and the GTX760 is rated at 170W, meaning a total chassis power output of either ~100W or ~220W. Given how loud the BRIX Pro seemed to be, one would assume that GIGABYTE has aimed towards a mobile GPU. We are awaiting confirmation from GIGABYTE on this detail, although it was reported that the device was warm to the touch during a GPU demonstration.
Aside from the core hardware, standard BRIX rules applies – two SO-DIMM slots, support for 2.5” and mSATA, 2T2R 802.11ac with BT 4.0, gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0 ports, dual HDMI and a single mini-DisplayPort connector. Given the size of the connectors on the image above, the BRIX GeForce Edition is a similar size to previous BRIX models.
No word on pricing as of yet, however this should hit the shelves in May. An i7 version is also said to be on the cards.
Source: The Tech Report
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Flunk - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
This is a neat idea, but I would have to say "warm to the touch" is a best-case of how this will perform thermally. I'd be impressed by it if it doesn't sound like a jet plane and burn down into the core of the earth.Gigabyte's got some really neat stuff going on in the Brix line. I'm not sure they're necessary for any specific application and I'm certainly not replacing my current desktop with one, but they are really neat.
LordOfTheBoired - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
"sound like a jet plane and burn down into the core of the earth"THAT experience would make it worth buying. How many people can honestly say their computer excavated a volcano in their living room when they loaded it up?
DryAir - Thursday, April 24, 2014 - link
Well, the cooling solution here is clearly changed in this version. The left vent and the heat spreader you can see through it are much bigger than the original Brix Pro. Plus, even though the heat output is increased, the total die area is also a lot bigger (CPU+GPU), so it will be easier to keep temps down.Anonymous Blowhard - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
Given the thermal constraints this has to operate under, this is begging for a Maxwell chip inside (GTX850M/GTX860M?)fokka - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
my thoughts exactly. can't imagine they can dissipate 200w+ in a case as small as this. with maxwell we would be in the 100w ballpark, much more manageable.schizoide - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
Was just coming here to say exactly that. It's clearly a mobile 760, and that's not good enough. A desktop 750Ti would barely be sufficient for me.Definitely getting there, though.
coder543 - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
This appears to be targeting casual-to-mid gamers. If a 750 Ti is barely sufficient for you, you're probably not the target market for this. For me, something like the Adreno 330 packed inside a Snapdragon 801 would be more than enough to do everything I want my computer to be able to do 9 days out of 10, from a volume of processing power standpoint. It would be able to handle programming, web surfing, and the occasional, casual game.EnzoFX - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
Same. Why can't they just make it a little wider? Nothing wrong with it being 10x more powerful and being 2x the size.Ortanon - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
I'm pretty sure each person who reads this article is going to think that lol.yannigr - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
Why not a 750Ti?