Double length GIGABYTE BRIX POC
I reviewed the Iris Pro Brix so I have more than a passing familiarity with the platform. While it was a nice system, it was simply too much CPU in such a tiny box (read loud). So in concept, I can kind of see where GIGABYTE is going with the double length BRIX concept AnandTech is showing off, but on the other hand… the whole point of mini-PCs is that they are small. Small enough to stick on the back of a monitor and roll your own AIO, so I’m not really sold on the idea unless they use the extra size to make something a lot more targeted a the HTPC market. Like a passive BRIX Iris Pro Sky Lake with a BD drive :).
Have a look at the board on AnandTech, then let us know what you think of the idea in the comments.
The BRIX mini-PC line from GIGABYTE is an odd internal mashup within the company whereby the server business unit designs it, but the consumer arm does the marketing and sales. We’ve covered several BRIX units in the past, focusing on new technologies such as Iris Pro as well as the mobile CPU line. The BRIX design is made to offer a very small way of building a base PC, similar to the NUC. If we remember back a couple of years ago, GIGABYTE did a couple of models in red and green, with integrated mobile GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA respectively, aimed at the gaming market. These stalled for various reasons, partly because the mini-PC market isn’t focused at gaming, and the power of the GPUs in play. So fast forward to 2016, and at CES this year GIGABYTE had a different take on the design and was asking for input from booth attendees.