Gigabyte Unveils New BRIX SFF Systems and Thunderbolt 2.0 Motherboards at CES

 We spent a little time meeting with the folks from Gigabyte while zipping from demo suite to demo suite at CES, and have some interesting products to show you. Along with a their wide array of existing motherboards, graphics cards, and peripherals, Gigabyte was showing off some brand new products as well, including a few updated (and more powerful) Brix small form factor machines and a couple of Thunderbolt 2.0 certified motherboards.

This GA-ZZ87X-UD7 TH is one of Gigabyte’s latest flagship Z87 Express based motherboards for Intel’s 4th Gen Core processors. In addition to all of the features inherent to the chipset, Gigabyte has also equipped this board with high-end audio, a gold plated socket, and support for Thunderbolt 2.0. The company throws in an 802.11ac WiFi controller too. If you’re unfamiliar with Thunderbolt 2.0, it builds upon the first iteration by adding channel bandwidth aggregation to push single-channel transfer speeds of up 20GB/s, versus a max of 10GB/s on the original. The increased bandwidth will enable faster transfer speeds from high-performance storage devices or support for up to 12 daisy-chained devices or multiple displays.

Gigabyte’s line of Brix small form factor machines also saw some major updates this CES. Gigabyte was showing off the upcoming Brix Pro, which features Intel’s high-end Iris Pro graphics engine, along with a Haswell-based processor. This is the configuration that will be used in Gigabyte’s Steam machine.

Gigabyte, however, went one further and also put together the new Brix Gaming system, which takes the Brix small form factor, but adds support for discrete graphics, through the use of MXM mobile GPU modules. Also on display was the new Brix Max, which is essentially a small form factor NAS server. The device has room for four 2.5 drives and runs a custom version of Android, which gives users access to user controls, content, and virtually anything else available to an Android device.

We don’t have expected pricing or availability just yet, but Gigabyte should be sharing more info soon.