Computex 2013: Kabini in a BRIX, Haswell Too
by Ian Cutress on June 3, 2013 2:29 AM EST- Posted in
- NUC
- Haswell
- Trade Shows
- Kabini
- BRIX
- Computex 2013
Despite Computex not officially starting yet, I am spending most of today in the Gigabyte suite. Before my booth tour I took a quick look around and a couple of little devices caught my eye: Kabini (and Haswell) in a BRIX. So BRIX is Gigabyte's take on the Intel NUC, and the first designs of BRIX could be found on the web a while ago - the first models with the BRIX design should be on sale shortly, with these Kabini and Haswell models to follow.
The Kabini model was placed with a list of compatible APUs: A4-5000, E3-3000, E1-2500 and E1-2100. Similarly the Haswell model is placed next to a sign stating compatibility up to an i7-4500U.
Connectivity includes a pair of USB 2.0 (not shown above), headphone output, two USB 3.0, ethernet, dual display (HDMI/mDP) and a Kensington lock.
Clearly the ideal chip in this form factor would be a GT3e/Crystallwell part. I am having a full guided tour of the booth later today and will ask questions such as storage, price/release date, and hopefully some internal shots!
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psychobriggsy - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
"Clearly the ideal chip in this form factor would be a GT3e/Crystallwell part. "Oh, those $400 to $600 chips? Yeah, perfect in a low cost computing box.
What I dislike about these systems is the external power brick.
jb14 - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
I should quantify my statement to be more about the 28W dual-core Haswell part with GT3 graphics, the Iris 5100, as listed by the announced ASUS Zenbook infinity. 28W will keep the heat down and the GT3 graphics will help as well. I didn't realise the high prices of the GT3e parts though. I'm coming from using a Lenovo Q180 mini PC with 4GB as my work PC, (initially was my HTPC), which uses the older Atom. I am not interested in the Kabini as I understand it has the same performance as the old atom except at half the wattage. My atom is truly dreadful as my work pc, so I suspect the kabini will be too (although great as an HTPC).Anyway I'm looking at this as a small work PC attached to the 24inch monitor, rather than as an HTPC, so more understanding of higher prices.
D64mn! - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
With the slight difference that a Kabini is on the level of a former Core 2, but at a fraction of the power draw.http://www.anandtech.com/show/6981/the-kabini-deal...
is on the level of a Core 2
jb14 - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
Not sure why you are linking to that Anand report? Kabini's compute is 0.39 compared to a pentium IB at 1.0, no mention of an old Core 2? I agree that the GPU side of things is equal if not better for the kabini.It quotes " As a result, Kabini doesn’t really gain any ground here. In my own use, I can feel a performance difference between the 2020M and the A4-5000 in tasks like installing/launching applications, as well as bigger CPU bound activities." 202M is an IB part as it states. Core 2 was 5ys+ ago. Is it possible to compare a core 2 with Kabini on a CPU comparison website? I would be surprised if Kabini's compute is a good as an old core 2, even one that is 5yrs old, but I freely admit to not knowing for sure.
atmartens - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
AMD's "netbook" chips are consistently ahead of Atom in performance. Honestly, for most people a Kabini BRIX would be all the desktop computer they need for the next few years.Death666Angel - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
"I am not interested in the Kabini as I understand it has the same performance as the old atom except at half the wattage."You may be thinking of the Temash implementation of the Jaguar cores. That is the one that is supposed to go into very thin and light notebooks and tablets and has between 4 and 9W TDP. Kabini is one step up from that with a TDP between 9 and 25W. Take a look at the AnandTech review of the A4-5000 and you see it has more than double the single threaded performance of the Atom in Cinebench (.39 vs .17) and nearly triple the multi threaded performance of it (1.5 vs .52). Furthermore Computerbase.de has comparisons to the Celeron 847 (Sandy Bridge) and I'm sure you can find some between the Celeron and previous Core architectures. :)
jb14 - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
Ah yes you are right I am getting the two confused. That certainly makes the kabini more interesting to me. I will have a look and see how the HD4600 compares to the kabini. I think I have been scarred by the atom performance and do not want to risk too low compute performance again. I like the icores as you know what sort of compute performance you are getting, but my experience of amd APUs, outside of dGPUs, is limited. The final prices of these two systems will be interesting. Ian if you've had this guided tour let us in on the info! Thanksjeffkibuule - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
It's pretty amazing what you can fit in such a small chassis, the traditional desktop is indeed dead for most people.kevinf28 - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
I definitely need some eSata ports. Hope there is a spare one on the inside I can hack :S Can't wait for the pictures of the internals.I love the little 'SPDIF' text under the headphone jack.. Mini-optical toslink for sound for an HTPC sounds delightful.
chizow - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
I'd like one of these for ~$120, add a mSATA for $80, some DDR3 Sodimm for $40 to get a Windows Media Center box for my TVs. CableCard TV and streaming recorded TV from a NAS is the goal here, although now I am starting to consider an Xbox One to do this if it's $400-$500. Mainly because the Xbox One will offer decent gaming where a NUC or BRIX certainly will not.