Gigabyte BRIX Gaming UHD Review With Teardown And Rebuild Action
Gigabyte BRIX Gaming UHD, A Pint-Sized Performance PC
The Gigabyte BRIX Gaming UHD is an exciting small form factor PC prospect. It packs a surprising amount of muscle into a tiny frame. This little flyweight may not sound too beastly with its GeForce GTX 950, but Gigabyte reckons it is more than capable of streaming 4K UHD media and taking a few swings at 1080p gaming with good image quality. Its 4.3-inch square footprint should help it blend into many entertainment centers or find a home on a dorm room desk for work, play, business or pleasure.
Most ultra small form-factor computers, by comparison, rely on integrated graphics to due to thermal constraints. Don’t get us wrong, integrated graphics solutions from Intel and AMD have come a long ways, but there is still no substitution for a discrete GPU for respectable gaming performance in current gen titles. While the GeForce GTX 950 isn't a killer graphics engine, it should still be a welcome bump up from integrated options without inducing a thermal meltdown or invoking hair dryer level acoustics.
The Gigabyte BRIX Gaming UHD is available as a barebones kit in North America. It includes an Intel Core i7-6700HQ, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 with 4GB, system board, power adapter, and case for $999. The BRIX Gaming UHD has two SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 32GB of RAM, two 2.5” drive bays, and two M.2 slots. One M.2 slot supports both SATA and NVMe PCIe drives while the other strictly uses the PCIe bus. For our review, Gigabyte provided 8GB of 2133MHz DDR4 RAM, a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 1TB 5400rpm HDD, and a Transcend 128GB M.2 SATA SSD, bringing the assembled total to about $1160.
Its front sides are adorned brushed aluminum, all bare save for Gigabyte’s logo at the top. This affords the computer a nice modern appearance that can stand out as well as it can blend in.
The brushed aluminum casing continues around the rear where we find one corner is shaved down with I/O port access. The ports include two RP SMA connectors for Wi-Fi antennas, two 3.5mm jacks for a microphone and headphones, three USB 3.0 ports, a USB 3.1 Type A port, a USB 3.1 Type-C port, Gigabit Ethernet port, power-in port, and Kensington lock point. Unfortunately, this Type-C port does not support Thunderbolt 3, so external graphics expansions are out of the question.
The Brix UHD's GeForce GTX 950 outputs are found along the left side from the spine. It offers three mini-DisplayPorts and a single HDMI 2.0 port. And yes, this little fella can drive four 4K displays simultaneously without any kind of adapter in play.
The top of the unit is capped with glossy black plastic. There is an inset mesh ring to serve as ventilation and a white LED strip accents the perimeter of the inner clip with a pleasing glow.
The bottom cap trades glossy plastic for a texturized rubber foot which is surrounded by a mesh air intake. This does a great job of keeping the unit in place. Four screw holes punctuate the bottom to provide access to the interior.
In all, it is an eye pleasing little system that’s sure to spark conversations around the coffee table or other non-traditional common areas it can call home. Before we get started, though, we will need to crack it open and install our drives and memory. Let's see what's inside and we'll give you a video tour of the teardown too...
Most ultra small form-factor computers, by comparison, rely on integrated graphics to due to thermal constraints. Don’t get us wrong, integrated graphics solutions from Intel and AMD have come a long ways, but there is still no substitution for a discrete GPU for respectable gaming performance in current gen titles. While the GeForce GTX 950 isn't a killer graphics engine, it should still be a welcome bump up from integrated options without inducing a thermal meltdown or invoking hair dryer level acoustics.
The Gigabyte BRIX Gaming UHD is available as a barebones kit in North America. It includes an Intel Core i7-6700HQ, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 with 4GB, system board, power adapter, and case for $999. The BRIX Gaming UHD has two SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 32GB of RAM, two 2.5” drive bays, and two M.2 slots. One M.2 slot supports both SATA and NVMe PCIe drives while the other strictly uses the PCIe bus. For our review, Gigabyte provided 8GB of 2133MHz DDR4 RAM, a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 1TB 5400rpm HDD, and a Transcend 128GB M.2 SATA SSD, bringing the assembled total to about $1160.
 |
|
| Processor |
6th Gen Intel Core i7-6700HQ (6MB Cache, 2.6GHz - 3.5GHz) |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 w/ 4GB GDDR5 |
| Memory | 8GB DDR4-2133 (1 DIMM) |
| Storage | Transcend TS128GMTS800 128GB M.2 SATA SSD Western Digital Scorpio Blue 1TB (84MB Cache) 5400 RPM SATA 3Gbps HDD |
| Optical | N/A |
| Ethernet | Intel i219LM Gigabit LAN |
| Connectivity | Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 2x2, Bluetooth 4.2 |
| Ports (Front) |
N/A |
| Ports (Rear) |
3 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 3.1, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C, 3.5mm headphone and microphone ports, GbE LAN, DC in |
| Ports (Side) |
3 x mini-DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI 2.0 |
| Operating System |
Windows 10 Home 64-bit |
| Dimensions |
8.66 x 4.33 x 4.33 inches / 220 x 110 x 110 mm (H x W x D) |
| Volume |
2.66 Liters |
| Warranty | 1-Year Limited Hardware |
| Price | $1160.00 (As configured, base model $999) |
Look and Feel
The Gigabyte BRIX Gaming UHD utilizes a stove-pipe design to take full advantage of the fact that hot air rises. Cool air enters the bottom and is exhausted out the top. The ultra-small tower stands roughly 4.5” by 4.5” square and around 8.5” high.
Its front sides are adorned brushed aluminum, all bare save for Gigabyte’s logo at the top. This affords the computer a nice modern appearance that can stand out as well as it can blend in.
The brushed aluminum casing continues around the rear where we find one corner is shaved down with I/O port access. The ports include two RP SMA connectors for Wi-Fi antennas, two 3.5mm jacks for a microphone and headphones, three USB 3.0 ports, a USB 3.1 Type A port, a USB 3.1 Type-C port, Gigabit Ethernet port, power-in port, and Kensington lock point. Unfortunately, this Type-C port does not support Thunderbolt 3, so external graphics expansions are out of the question.
The Brix UHD's GeForce GTX 950 outputs are found along the left side from the spine. It offers three mini-DisplayPorts and a single HDMI 2.0 port. And yes, this little fella can drive four 4K displays simultaneously without any kind of adapter in play.
The top of the unit is capped with glossy black plastic. There is an inset mesh ring to serve as ventilation and a white LED strip accents the perimeter of the inner clip with a pleasing glow.
The bottom cap trades glossy plastic for a texturized rubber foot which is surrounded by a mesh air intake. This does a great job of keeping the unit in place. Four screw holes punctuate the bottom to provide access to the interior.
In all, it is an eye pleasing little system that’s sure to spark conversations around the coffee table or other non-traditional common areas it can call home. Before we get started, though, we will need to crack it open and install our drives and memory. Let's see what's inside and we'll give you a video tour of the teardown too...
