GIGABYTE GB-BXi7H-5500 Broadwell BRIX Review
by Ganesh T S on January 29, 2015 7:00 AM ESTGaming Benchmarks
Intel's integrated GPUs don't have a big name in the gaming community. Once in a while, Intel throws in a surprise. In the Haswell family, CPUs with Iris Pro graphics gave a pleasant surprise to casual gamers. In this section, we will identify whether the Intel HD Graphics 5500 in the Core i7-5500U can provide an acceptable gaming experience.
For the purpose of benchmarking, we chose four different games (Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite and DiRT Showdown) at three different quality levels. As someone focusing on HTPCs and multimedia aspects, I rarely get to process gaming benchmarks, even while evaluating GPUs. One of the aspects that I feared was spending lot of time in installing the same games again and again on different PCs under the review scanner. The solution was to go the Steam route. Unfortunately, Steam also likes to keep the game files updated. A quick online search revealed that Steam could make use of an external drive for storing the game executables and downloadable content. With the Steam drive on-the-go use-case being read-heavy, the Corsair Flash Voyager GS USB 3.0 128GB Flash Drive (with read speeds of up to 275 MBps) was ideal for use as a portable Steam drive.
Sleeping Dogs
Tomb Raider
Bioshock Infinite
Tomb Raider
All the gaming benchmarks show a clear trend - users are getting better and better gaming performance with each successive generation of Intel GPUs. The Iris Pro-equipped systems still lead the pack by quite a distance, but, the power consumption profile is quite different. For the considered games, the GB-BXi7H-5500 can provde 30+ fps only in the lowest quality settings. These results are not entirely unexpected for Broadwell GT2. Systems based on Broadwell GT3e graphics (Iris Pro) are going to be the ones targeting the gaming community.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
53 Comments
View All Comments
cobalt42 - Friday, January 30, 2015 - link
I think you're actually kind of agreeing -- as implied by the OP, 1366x768 is closer to 1280x720 than it is to 1280x1024. (768p is 80% of 12x10, 720p is 70% of 12x10). Either way, 1280x1048 is rather too many pixels.milkod2001 - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
This seems more reasonable build compared to ASrock a few days back you posted review about. But Im still not sold on temperatures it reaches. 90c is way too much. Looks like even Broodwell could not help. Problem must be the case, it's just way too small.My suggestion to vendors would be to completely ignore Intel's NUC standard build entirely and put everything into bigger aluminium case Apple mini like.
milkod2001 - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
in other words, clone Apple mini, make RAM + SSD upgradable and slap windows OS on that. Then we talk.nwrigley - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
I haven't seen anything that comes close to the Mac Mini on an engineering level. It's a real shame too, the Mac Mini has been out for 10 years and nothing has bested that design.I hope we start to see some more innovation. If you go a step above the Mac Mini in size/weight/performance you've probably doubled your size and weight (at least). I wish they would make parts for systems larger than a laptop, but smaller than a tower. I would gladly trade off some of the size and weight of the Mini for more performance.
Kalessian - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
This review hit my browser like a sack of brix. Thx.ericgl21 - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
This i7-5500U is not impressive at all.Even now with 14nm, a 15W CPU (with iGPU) from Intel still doesn't cut it.
Hopefully, Intel will release a proper quad-core CPU that would take on the i7-4770R in all respects, including a lower TDP.
BlueBlazer - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
Getting close and often surpassing AMD mobile APU offerings that has higher TDPs. Source of comparisons http://www.anandtech.com/show/8119/amd-launches-mo... and http://www.anandtech.com/show/7106/amds-a105750m-r... Although differrent resolutions, 1280x1024 has more pixels than 1366x768. Furthermore not forgetting that this Core i7 5500u is just a 15W part!Hulk - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
Not that I don't appreciate this fantastic review but are we going to see a Broadwell review?Specifically:
Broadwell, Haswell, Ivy, and Sandy with clocks normalized so we can see IPC improvements Work normalized so we can see a few generations of power efficiency improvements?
And finally head-to-head for each iGPU (with games and compute benches)?
TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
Looks good. cant wait to pick up the hd 6000 varient. I may have missed it, but does the broadwell NUC allow for the TDP to be raised like the haswell ones did? that, combined with 2133 memory let hd 5000 stretch its legs and perform quite well. hd6000 would be even better.kgh00007 - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
Yeah I hope so! I have raised the TDP on my D54250WYK to 25W and also have 2133 RAM, makes a big difference in performance over 15W TDP and 1600 RAM in games!!