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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gochichi - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
As was mentioned in the Mac Pro 2013 review, the desktop market needs to evolve to remain viable and relevant. While it’s nice to see these NUC systems finally start popping up, I feel like the price just isn’t right for these new systems. They are clearly as inexpensive to make as a traditional system and so I don’t understand the prices. Shipping costs from China of these tiny machines should represent some sort of savings to the manufacturer.I’d like to see something actually forward looking come from the PC side. Like a standard external power supply unit that is as standard as ATX PSUs are today. I like the thing, it doesn’t have to have the best design on the planet but the price is just so off. $1000 for why? We’re not even accounting for a Windows OS (and maybe we shouldn’t, Linux is actually viable) but still, Windows is another bill. I get that we could find an mSATA drive for $90 but still, it is just slow progress. I feel like if it’s cheap to make (which this thing obviously is), I’d love to see that reflected on the price on day one.
Let me put it another way… I’d like to see a standard that is more or less a laptop without an embedded keyboard, mouse or screen or battery. I see so many laptops that I think, “If this didn’t have this crappy screen, if this had NO screen at all” I’d buy it and use it for X. I see $230 laptops with Windows installed and the only problem I see with them is that they are laptops. I know the screens, keyboard and trackpads and batteries on lower end laptops are junk, but are they really next-to-free to include?
Looking at the shape of things, it is genius on Apple’s side to make the device circular in order to follow the shape of the gigantic fan. If we boil down the essence of what a desktop is, we say: BIGGER fans= bigger thermal capacity, bring your own monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
The Microsoft Store carries exactly zero desktops. Now it’s nice to see what I want become available at all, but it seems strange that it would come at a huge price premium. Apple continues to lead in terms of value and in terms of understand the market (and I find this very frustrating, I wish I could just get my Apple tattoo and “switch” and be done with it, but I keep rooting for open standards that never come.
Call it Ultradesk (vs Ultrabook), I think we’re so fantastically overdue a real update on desktops and this device is one that probably after 3-years you’ll be glad you didn’t look at the price at all but at the same time, the same could be said about a Mac Mini.
I’m talking about a Microsoft Surface minus the touchscreen and battery… just plain desktop in a quiet and versatile format.
JohnHardkiss - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Totally agree with you, +1.Qwertilot - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
Desktops do definitely need to sort themselves out. I'm not sure if they should to go outright cheap mind.Desktops have such a long fully usable life span now - even gaming will give you ~5 years and it could be much more for other uses - so there's arguably actually more incentive than before to get everything 'nice'. Not in power terms as such but monitor, keyboard, form factor, noise etc.
CknSalad - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
There just needs to be less full and mid-tower PCs and a lot more M-ATX (Silverstone TJ08-E sized) and especially ITX cases like the crowd-funded Ncase M1, SG05 or the antec ISK series (for the less-demanding tasks). I totally agree that the desktop market has been way too slow into moving towards the SFF market.artemisgoldfish - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
A single eSATA port would be really nice. USB 3.0 is nice and all, but it's just not as compelling as a storage interface. Other than that nit to pick, I think the lesser Gigabyte units would make nice low-power home servers once you connect external bulk storage, and the higher-specced units... Well, I would quite like one in my cubicle at work.ryrynz - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Wanna see options for making this thing near silent.ryrynz - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Any chance of looking into how underclocking and swapping out the fan helps with noise?ryrynz - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Can you look into what options are available in the BIOS too?Zandros - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Interesting total power consumption numbers and as a proof of concept. 88 W compares with Apple's stated 85 W max (actual power seems to be significantly less though) for the Mac mini. I really think the R-series could work well in a redesigned mini, if only to avoid the exorbitant prices of the mobile Iris Pro parts. Sadly, the list price of the 4570R is still about $50 higher than the current Ivy Bridge in the low end mini.mofo77 - Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - link
It seems to be a great combination of size and power but one thing is really disappointing, i.e. mini DP max resolution is 3200x2000 instead of 4k (according to specification found on the Gigabyte web page). It is a huge omission in my opinion. I almost wanted to order this unit but because of that I will not do that. The other consideration is noise. I want my PC to run as quiet as possible.