Gigabyte Brix S GB-BSi5HT-6200 Ultra Compact SFF PC Review

Name: Gigabyte Brix S
Brand: Gigabyte

by Marco Chiappetta — Friday, September 23, 2016, 12:13 PM EDT

We decided to compare the Gigabyte Brix S BSi5HT-6200 to a handful of other Brix and NUC small form factor systems. We also threw in some mainstream desktop reference numbers we had on hand from our AMD Kaveri performance review. It's not exactly apples-to-apples - these are all different platforms after all - but the numbers are in the same ballpark.

HotHardware's Test Systems

System 1:
AMD A10-6800K
(4.1GHz - Quad-Core)
AMD A8-7600
(3.8GHz/3.3GHz Quad-Core)

Asus A88X-Pro
(AMD A88 Chipset)

2x8GB AMD DDR3-2133
(@1866 with 6700)

On-Processor Graphics
On-Board Ethernet
On-board Audio

Samsung SSD 840 Pro

System 2:
Intel Core i5-4670K
(3.8GHz - Quad-Core)
Intel Core i3-4330
(3.5GHz - Dual-Core + HT)

Gigabyte Z87X-UD7 TH
(Z87 Express Chipset)

2x8GB AMD DDR3-2133
(@1600 with Haswell)

Intel HD 4600
On-Board Ethernet
On-board Audio

Samsung SSD 840 Pro

System 3:
Intel Core i5-6200U (Brix S)
(1.6GHz Dual-Core)

Intel Motherboard

2X8GB Kingston HyperX DDR4-2133

Intel Iris HD 520

On-Board Ethernet
On-Board Audio

Kingston Predator M.2 SSD

SiSoftware SANDRA 2016

Synthetic Benchmarks

We started our testing with SiSoftware's SANDRA, the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. We ran four of the built-in subsystem tests (CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Memory Bandwidth, Physical Disk).

CPU and Multimedia Tests

Memory Bandwidth and Storage

The Gigabyte Brix S GB-BSi5HT-6200 performs right where you'd expect it to in the various SADNRA tests we ran. The Core i5-6200U is a low-power processor and it finishes right in line with similar parts in the CPU and multimedia tests. Memory bandwidth hovered in the 27GB/s range and that Kingston M.2 SSD came in just shy of the 1.1GB/s mark. The Intel Core i5-6200U is a common processor SKU employed in thin and light ultrabooks and here, in the Brix S, it has vital signs very much like this class of machine as well.

Cinebench R15

3D Rendering Content Creation Performance

Cinebench R11.5 is a 3D rendering performance test based on Cinema 4D from Maxon. Cinema 4D is a 3D rendering and animation suite used by animation houses and producers like Sony Animation and many others. It's very demanding of processor resources and is an excellent gauge of pure computational throughput.

The low-power, dual-core Core i5-6200U couldn't quite keep pace with the desktop processors or the higher-end quad-core Brix / NUC machines, but performance was good overall. Single-core performance specifically, was more competitive thanks to the inherent benefits of Skylake and the relatively high boost clocks of the CPU.

Tags: SFF, Gigabyte, mini-PC, NUC, brix, Skylake, brix s

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com