The Gigabyte Brix line of computers are mini-desktops that aren’t much bigger than a small stack of DVDs. They’re a lot like Intel’s NUC mini computers, but since Gigabyte doesn’t make its own chips, the company uses processors from Intel or rival AMD.

Two of the first AMD-powered Brix systems are now available in the United States, with prices starting at $260.

Brix GB-BXA8-5545

Gigabyte Brix GB-BXA8-5545 

The entry-level model is the Gigabyte GB-BXA8-5545. This model sells for about $260 and features an AMD A8-5545M Richland processor, Radeon HD 8510G graphics, Gigabit ethernet, 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth, four USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and mini DisplayPort, and room for an mSATA solid state drive and up to 16GB of RAM.

The system measures 4.5″ x 4.2″ x 1.2″ and according to a review from Computer Shopper, it has more than enough power to handle HD video playback and other home theater PC tasks.

Gigabyte’s $260 mini desktop doesn’t come with storage, memory, or an operating system, so you’ll need to provide your own. And it’s not really fast enough to handle high-end, modern video games — although you should be able to play older games on it.

Possibly it’s main selling point is that the Gigabyte GB-BXA8-5545 is significantly cheaper than an Intel NUC with a Core i3 chip, such as the $380 Haswell-powered NUC D54250WYK1. But it’s also a little less powerful when it comes to sheer CPU performance, and noisier when the CPU and GPU are working hard enough to power up the fan.

Gigabyte Brix Gaming GB-BXA8G-8890

Gigabyte also offers a model that is designed for modern gaming — but it has the price to match. The Gigabyte Brix Gaming GB-BXA8G-8890 system sells for $570 and features an AMD A8-5557M CPu and AMD Radeon R9 M275X dedicated graphics.

Gigabyte Brix Gaming

This system’s a bit bigger, measuring 5″ x 4.5″ x 2.4″ but it has room for a SATA III hard drive as well as an mSATA SSD. It also features faster 802.11ac WiFi.

Like most Brix desktops, Gigabyte sells this model without storage, memory, or an operating system.

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11 replies on “Gigabyte Brix mini-PCs with AMD now available for $260 and up”

  1. I’m liking this cheap desktop. This would be a nice outlet to run some Linux on in some cases. it could actually work out well. I sometimes get tired of trying to coax old machines back to life.

    1. you will end up in wasting electricial energy , switch to AIO system or NUC with LCD Screen 20 inches.

  2. For someone who does 0 PC gaming how do these compare with Intel chips? The only CPU intensive stuff I do is LZMA2 (ie. tar.xz files) de/compression and HandBrake transcoding.

      1. Do you know of any particular head to head CPU only comparisons? I’m specifically looking for what price I’m paying, if any, for the better performance. Specifically comparing the chips in the NUCs and Intel BRIXs to these AMD boxes.

        1. you probably want to look at notebookcheck, they have a pretty big table of results though they’re missing some desktop CPUs. Anyway, looks like the higher end AMD CPU in the gaming model matches the i3 current generation NUC for single or multithreaded tasks, then the i5 NUC beats all the AMD options. Oh and all of these things come in at about the performance of a high end Core 2 Duo from way back when.

          1. That’s a bit off and for the price, the AMD Gaming solution smokes the Intel for value. Its taken a decade but Intel has finally caught AMD/ATI but not passed them and it still cost more to get that kind of GPU power.

            The footprint is what you’re mostly paying for. The APU in the $260 unit is slower than my AMD based laptop or my AMD Llano based HTPC. If I didn’t have other things to focus on, I might consider one of these to shrink down my HTPC to the size of a stack of CD’s…

          2. The original question was about CPU only performance and price. The guy asking said he does 0 gaming.

          3. I understand but if you’re using software that is optimized for AMD, its not an issue either. Final Cut (Mac) and Adobe Premier (Windows) are not your only options when it comes to video editing. Libreoffice is light and fast on any platform. Sure Intel is faster in absolute terms, but I never noticed anything being slower. I use Chrome for everything else, you don’t need a ton of computational power anymore.

            There are some advantages using Intel caching with SSD’s but all these advantages cost and I don’t think the minor productivity gains are worth the extra $100-$200 per machine.

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