GIGABYTE BRIX Gaming UHD GB-BNi7HG4-950 mini-PC Review

Networking and Storage Performance

Networking and storage are two major aspects which influence our experience with any computing system. This section presents results from our evaluation of these aspects in the GIGABYTE GB-BNi7HG4-950. On the storage side, one option would be repetition of our strenuous SSD review tests on the drive(s) in the PC. Fortunately, to avoid that overkill, PCMark 8 has a storage bench where certain common workloads such as loading games and document processing are replayed on the target drive.

GIGABYTE had put in a 128GB M.2 SATA SSD (the Transcend MTS800 family) for the boot drive. This M.2 2280 SSD uses Micron 20nm MLC NAND with the Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller. Obviously, this is a budget SSD and not meant to light up the benchmark numbers. A WD Blue 1TB 5400 RPM drive also came pre-installed in our review cofiguration. Gamers on a budget usually prefer a high-capacity hard drive for installing games, and GIGABYTE has wisely put in support for it in the GB-BXi7HG4-950.

The storage benchmarking results are presented in two forms, one being a benchmark number and the other, a bandwidth figure. We ran the PCMark 8 storage bench on selected PCs and the results are presented below.

For most common consumer workloads, the PCMark 8 Storage Bench scores indicate that the benefit of going from a SATA SSD to a PCIe SSD is minimal. However, in terms of actual storage bandwidth, the NVMe SSD-based system in the list of compared PCs wins hands down.

On the networking side, we restricted ourselves to the evaluation of the WLAN component. Our standard test router is the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk configured with both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. The router is placed approximately 20 ft. away, separated by a drywall (as in a typical US building). A wired client with an Intel NIC is connected to the R7000 and serves as one endpoint for iperf evaluation. The PC under test is made to connect to either the 5 GHz (preferred) or 2.4 GHz SSID and iperf tests are conducted for both TCP and UDP transfers. It is ensured that the PC under test is the only wireless client for the Netgear R7000. We evaluate total throughput for up to 32 simultaneous TCP connections using iperf and present the highest number in the graph below.

In the UDP case, we try to transfer data at the highest rate possible for which we get less than 1% packet loss.

The GB-BNi7HG4-950 comes with a separate antenna that allows for flexible placement to get the best Wi-Fi reception. We placed the antenna on top of the chassis for this evaluation (as showin in the picture on the final page of this review). The benchmark numbers for this Intel AC8260 system in our WLAN testing are quite good, being bettered only by the Skull Canyon NUC (which also uses the AC8260). It is possible that the antenna placement can be tweaked to achieve numbers similar to the Skull Canyon NUC.