Review: Gigabyte Brix Gaming UHD (GB-BNi7HG4-950)

by Parm Mann on 13 October 2016, 12:30

Tags: Gigabyte (TPE:2376), Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qac7s2

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Test Methodology

Comparison Systems

System Name ASRock BeeBox DinoPC Primal GT2 Gigabyte Brix Gaming UHD Gigabyte Brix Gigabyte Brix S Intel Compute Stick Intel NUC Kit
Model N300 Primal GT2 GB-BNi7HG4-950 GB-BSi5T-6200 GB-BXi5H-5200 STCK1A32WFC NUC5i5RYH
CPU Intel Celeron N3000 Intel Core i5-6500 Intel Core i7-6700HQ Intel Core i5-6200U Intel Core i5-5200U Intel Atom Z3735F Intel Core i5-5250U
CPU Base Clock 1.04GHz 3.2GHz 2.6GHz 2.3GHz 2.2GHz 1.33GHz 1.6GHz
CPU Turbo Clock 2.08GHz 3.6GHz 3.5GHz 2.8GHz 2.7GHz 1.83GHz 2.7GHz
CPU Cores / Threads 2 / 2 4 / 4 4 / 8 2 / 4 2 / 4 4 / 4 2 / 4
CPU TDP / SDP 4W / 3W 65W 45W 15W 15W - / 2.2W 15W
Motherboard ASRock N3000-NUC Gigabyte Z170N-WiFi Gigabyte MKHM17P Gigabyte MKLP5BP Gigabyte MQLP5AP Intel Compute Stick reference Intel NUC5i5RYB
Memory Team Group 4GB DDR3 (2x2GB) Crucial 16GB DDR4 (2x8GB) Crucial 16GB (2x8GB) Samsung 32GB (2x16GB) Adata 8GB (2x4GB) Soldered 2GB DDR3 (1x2GB) Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR3 (2x8GB) (added)
Memory Speed 1,600MHz 2,133MHz 2,400MHz 2,133MHz 1,600MHz 1,333MHz 1,600MHz
Graphics Intel HD Graphics Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 ITX 4GB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 4GB Intel HD 520 Intel HD 5500 Intel HD Graphics Intel HD 6000
Primary Storage Team Group 128GB mSATA SSD 240GB Kingston SSDNow V300 SSD 512GB Samsung 950 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD 256GB Toshiba NVMe M.2 SSD 120GB Kingston SSDNow mSATA SSD 32GB eMMC 240GB Crucial M500 SSD (added)
Secondary Storage - 1TB Seagate SSHD - - 1TB Seagate Momentus HDD - -
PSU Asian Power Devices (36W, external) FSP FSP500-60HHN (500W, internal) Delta Electronics (180W, external) FSP Group (90W, external) Asian Power Devices (65W, external) Asian Power Devices (10W, external) Intel NUC (65W, external)
Chassis ASRock BeeBox Fractal Design Core 500 Gigabyte Brix Gaming UHD Gigabyte Brix Gigabyte Brix S Intel Compute Stick Intel NUC
Operating System Windows 10 (64-bit) Windows 10 (64-bit) Windows 10 (64-bit) Windows 10 (64-bit) Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Windows 8.1 (32-bit) Windows 8.1 (64-bit)
Date Reviewed January 2016 October 2015 October 2016 March 2016 March 2015 May 2015 April 2015
Cost As Reviewed £270 £899 £1,300 £665 £665 £130 £535

CPU Benchmarks

HEXUS PiFast Our number-crunching PiFast test is used to benchmark the computational power of each system's CPU.
Cinebench Using Cinebench's multi-CPU render, this cross-platform benchmark stresses as many cores as possible.
HandBrake Free-to-use video encoder that stresses all CPU cores.

Memory, Storage and System Benchmarks

AIDA64 Benchmark that analyses memory bandwidth and latency.
CrystalDiskMark Popular free-to-use storage benchmark, used to gauge sequential performance.
Gaming Benchmarks
3DMark DX11, run at the Firestrike default test.
Gaming A selection of modern titles are tested at various resolutions.

Miscellaneous Benchmarks

Power Consumption Noted for system idling and under HandBrake video-transcoding load.
Temperature Noted for CPU idling and under HandBrake video-transcoding load.

Notes

We have a selection of form factors in our line-up, ranging from the itty-bitty Intel Compute Stick to a small-form-factor DinoPC desktop. The Gigabyte Brix Gaming UHD should be looking to challenge the latter, and do note that our review configuration - with 16GB of Crucial memory, a 512GB M.2 SSD and Windows 10 - takes total build cost up to around the £1,300 mark.