Gigabyte BRIX Gaming UHD Review With Teardown And Rebuild Action

Cinebench R15 Cross Platform Rendering Performance

CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software Cinema 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Iron Man 3, Oblivion, Life of Pi or Prometheus and many more. CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and OS X).

The Cinebench benchmark suite consists of two modules to compare both CPU and graphics card performance.


In the CPU test, we find the Gigabyte BRIX Gaming UHD's performance to be virtually on par with that of its closest competition - Alienware's Alpha R2. The Alpha R2's processor (Core i7-6700T) is slightly stronger on paper with an extra 200MHz of headroom in its baseclock and 100MHz advantage in turbo along with a larger cache size (8MB vs 6MB). However, it seems the cooling solution in the BRIX Gaming UHD may be a little more effective than the compact dual blower configuration of the Alpha R2, allowing the underdog to remain competitive.


The OpenGL test, however, is not as kind to our contender. Ample cooling or not, the GeForce GTX 950 is not strong enough to trade blows with the better equipped GTX 960 packed inside the Alpha R2. We will note, however, that the difference is really only about 10% here and does beat out the previous generation GTX 860m in the original Alpha quite handily.

3DMark Fire Strike Direct X 11 Performance Showcase

3D Mark’s Fire Strike benchmark has been a Direct X standard bearer for years now. The test itself consists of two graphics portions, a physics test, and a combined test which are aggregated to provide a final score.  The benchmark uses tessellation, ambient occlusion, volume illumination, and a high quality depth of field filter.  It is punishing to both processors and graphics cards alike across three presets which cover 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions. We use the 1080p "Standard" preset to cover so-called entry level performance PCs.


As will be a familiar theme, we see the BRIX Gaming UHD slot in nicely between generations of Alienware Alpha benchmarks.

We believe it is important to understand how these systems will perform in the real world, so let's check out how it handles some popular titles...