The Gigabyte BRIX is a tiny desktop computer that measures about 4.5″ x 4.2″ x 1.2″. But it’s a full-fledged desktop computer, with support for an Intel Core i7 processor, up to 16GB of RAM, and as much storage as you can fit on an mSATA solid state drive.

Gigabyte has been showing off  versions of its little computer since January. But the company   is showing off new models at the Computex trade show in Taiwan with a few changes.

The biggest change? It looks like Gigabyte plans to offer Brix devices with a choice of Intel or AMD processors.

Gigabyte Brix

What makes that kind of surprising is that early versions of Gigabyte’s mini-desktop appeared to be based on Intel’s NUC design. That stands for Next Unit of Computing, and it’s a design that Intel developed for device makers that wanted to offer small form-factor desktop computers with Intel’s chips.

Gigabyte does plan to offer models packing Intel Haswell chips, with a choice of Intel Core i3 through Core i7 processors.

brix haswell

But folks looking for a cheaper (and less powerful) option can also opt for a model with an AMD Kabini chip. Gigabyte says the Brix will be available with AMD E1-2100, E1-2500 or E2-3000 dual-core chips, or a A4-5000 quad-core processor.

Gigabyte Brix with Kabini

These are AMD’s mid-range chips designed for notebooks, tablets, and mobile devices. Basically, they’re the company’s answer to an Intel Core i3 or slower processor. But these 9W to 15W chips also feature Radeon HD graphics cores which should handle HD video playback and some light gaming tasks reasonably well.

That could make a Kabini-powered Gigabyte BRIX system a reasonable option for a home theater PC.

via MiniMachines

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7 replies on “Gigabyte Brix mini-computer to come in AMD Kabini, Intel Haswell flavors”

  1. AMD Kabini is excellent for many applications including HTPC, laptop, etc. Special versions are used in the Xbox, PS4 and Wii. AMD is the best with better price and speed with best iGPU as AMD APU s are awesome …

  2. So how much has mobile performance increased in the last 3.5 years? I have a 3.2 GHz Core 2 Quad. How would these U (maybe M or T for larger devices) chips compare in terms of x264 encoding?

    1. I’d say performance per say (in speed) has not improved greatly. However in terms of graphics it has greatly in proved. However what has greatly improved are the chips power efficiency.

      1. The power efficiency improvements (at least from Sandy Bridge to Haswell) are huge only with the U and Y chips. The M, T and desktop chips don’t have much of these power consumption enhancements.

        1. Bull. Go look at the T quadcore reviews at Toms. Total system power requirement at idle or light workloads fell by 1/4. This is also due to the new process node (and power savings) for motherboards

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