GIGABYTE BRIX Pro: A First Look at the Intel i7-4770R with Iris Pro HD 5200
by Ganesh T S on January 7, 2014 8:00 PM EST
We have had a quick glance at what the Core i7-4770R is capable of in the BRIX Pro. The initial look has given us various avenues to explore in the second part of the review. After getting back from CES, our first plan is to investigate whether any real-world workloads can cause the unit to throttle. The WLAN card is also pending investigation. At first glance it appears to be a 1x1 802.11ac card from Realtek, but more tests need to be done in order to get an idea of the WLAN performance.
The unit does offer the DIY crowd a little bit of flexibility in fine-tuning the performance. With judicious choice of DRAM and SSD / HDD storage, it is possible to adapt the BRIX Pro to one's requirements. The effect of the choice of DRAM modules can't be overstated in determining the performance of the system. We plan to benchmark the unit with a couple of additional DRAM modules (varying in size and speed). The Corsair Vengeance SODIMMs capable of running at 1866 MHz and the 8 GB per stick ADATA stick capable of running at 1600 MHz are already with us. The memory slots in the BRIX Pro are tuned for DDR3L (1.35V DRAM). It will be interesting to watch what speeds can be hit with these memory modules.
Additionally, as readers requested in our NUC review, we plan to add some basic gaming benchmarks to the mix. Anand has already covered the gaming performance of the Iris Pro HD5200 in detail before, but this will give some additional context for the BRIX Pro as a gaming machine.
Gigabyte's press release for the BRIX Pro went out yesterday. The product has two SKUs, one based on the i7-4770R, and the other based on the i5-4570R. Both CPUs have 65W TDPs, and hence there should really be nothing different between the two versions other than the CPU itself. One of the interesting aspects in the press release was the reference to 64 MB of eDRAM on the Iris Pro HD 5200. Anand's testing of the i7-4950HQ estimated the amount of eDRAM to be around 128 MB as per Intel's specifications. However, Gigabyte continues to hold on to the 64 MB eDRAM number for the i7-4770R and the i5-4570R even after a request for comment was sent. This is one additional aspect that we would like to evaluate in our second part of the review.
The final aspect that we are covering today is pricing. The i7-4770R and i5-4570R cost $392 and $288 respectively (as per the ARK pages). They are only available to OEMs. The MSRP for the GB-BXi5-4570R is $529, while the GB-BXi7-4770R comes in at $649. Considering that no other vendor has brought out a i7-4770R system, Gigabyte can charge a premium and still get away with it. Given the high price demanded by Intel for the CPU alone, the end pricing of the systems don't appear outrageous.
The BRIX Pro is a very exciting system and will definitely energize the NUC / UCFF category. The only worrying point is the thermal performance. Would it have been better for the 47W TDP version (i7-4950HQ) to come in this chassis, with the 65W TDP version sacrificing some of the compactness for a better cooling system? At this point, we don't want to jump to conclusions before digging more into the throttling behaviour. Stay tuned for further coverage towards the end of this month.
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8steve8 - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
+1if it can be replaced by a better cooler even if it increases size, i'd like to know . there is simply no other way to get iris pro.. (besides macbook pro 15 and imac 21.5).. but those are not the higher end 65W ones...
japtor - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
The iMac uses the 65W i5-4570R actually.8steve8 - Wednesday, January 29, 2014 - link
you're right... so i guess there is one other way on planet earth to get these 65W iris pro parts... but a 21.5" screen is attached... i hope apple makes an imac mini iris pro.Also it's such an epic fail gigabyte fumbled the fan/noise situation on this... anyone have a photo of what the cooling solution is? or any photos of the cpu area?
JohnHardkiss - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
(1st post here)I am suprised it isn't mentioned here that Gigabyte is planning to release BRIXs with mobile dGPUs as well. This is interesting and I hope Anandtech will cover this as well and compare their performance with the 4770r. Obviously, having dGPU in a BRIX format defies the need for 4770R somewhat. the combo-setups will be 1) AMD A8 APU + Radeon HD 8890M, 2) Intel CPU + Radeon HD 8890M, 3) Intel CPU + Nvidia GTX 880M. You can even see the stickers Gigabyte put on their BRIX models showcased at the CES in your own gallery here: http://anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/3311#8 .
A request for the full review is also to please have some clear pictures of the BRIX stripped down. I mean, how is the cpu connected to the heatsink and how is the fan exactly positioned? I can imagine myself building a simple, sleightly larger case with some Vesa compatible holes drilled in it to fix the Brix Pro in. This way one could hopefully exchange the stock fan with some quiet 140mm fan and not have to live with the probably insane amount of stocknoise. (And, i could glue the psu inside this larger case as well ;) - Gigabyte, take note of this idea!)
I would also like to suggest to look at how the dimensions of the Gigabyte Pro motherboard relate to the NUC dimensions. Is it 1:1 as far as size goes? Or 1:1 as far as formfactor goes: are the screwholes dimensioned the same?
Lastly, I would like to suggest this: In a lot of the practical gaming tests that are done with iGPUs, I don't see 1080p resolutions being tested. Today this is becoming outdated, since not only the 4770R in this BRIX Pro unit, but also the Kaveri a10-7850k (as well as the 65W(!) rated a10-7800 which I believe shares the same iGPU but is clocked a bit lower cpu wise) are capable of gaming at these resolutions. I mean, see this for what we have coming our way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axyHkKn_e80 pretty insane.
So, please Anandtech, start incorporating 1080p gaming in your benchmarks. A game like cs:go on 1080p would be awesome. I am planning to use either the new kaveri or this 4770r for this game but I'm not sure it will handle it.
A rather long first post, but you can understand hopefully that I try to bring some free thoughts to this table. I hope you incorporate these in your review Anandtech!
rhx123 - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Wow, didn't know about the 880M one.It looks smaller than this one though, and the TDP of the 880M will probably be arround 100W alone, doesnt really seem to add up to me.
fluxtatic - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
I'll second the call for 1080p benchmarks. 1440p benchmarks are fine, but the latest Steam Hardware Survey has 1440p at less than 1% still. 1080p has 32%. Next down is 1366x768 at 23%.So, yes, I can get an idea more or less what I can expect at 1080p from 1440p benchmarks, but the picture is less than perfect - 1440p is pushing half again as many pixels as 1080p.
amb9800 - Sunday, January 19, 2014 - link
Very interesting- hadn't seen the dGPU BRIX models. Wonder if they'll ever actually make it to market though- Gigabyte has a pretty poor track record showing things that end up either too late to be relevant, or never. Also wonder how the cooling would work in that footprint, given the GTX 880M would almost double the TDP.jasonelmore - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
thanks for the review, i would have like to seen at least 2 or 3 gaming benchmarks (non-synthetics).Battlefield 4
Metro LL
any Valve game
JohnHardkiss - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
another reason to test cs:go is that it is a steam-released game (by Valve). Seeing how the BRIX Pro is presented at the CES as a steambox as well, testing itt would make sense.I also would like to +1 the suggestion of JasonElmore above to benchmark Battlefield 4 since it is already benchmarked in the youtube video I linked to in my previous post. a clear comparison could be drawn this way.
patterson32 - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Please test Linux on this. Use whatever distro you feel is good.