Sunday, September 15, 2013
Increasing numbers of mini computing solutions - whether all-in-one handheld gaming units such as the Nvidia Shield or mini-PCs such as the Intel NUC - are appearing across the market. And Gigabyte - the Taiwanese company probably better known for the occasional laptop in the UK - has unveiled its Brix pocket gaming PC.
On the show floor at the Intel Developers Forum in San Francisco we were privy to see the forthcoming system in both bright red and yellow finishes, as well as test the hooked-up system out with a play session of Grid 2, complete with full-on Logitech steering wheel, gear stick and pedals peripherals.
But let's backtrack: what is Brix? This boxy, cube-like structure (a cuboid if we're being fussy) contains the latest Intel Haswell architecture complete with Iris Pro graphics.
But despite it's angular design we think it's looks seriously cool; all industrial with jaunty angled vent, yet eye-catching thanks to the finish. It's crafted from aluminium so is lightweight yet tough and doesn't suffer from heating up to saucepan levels either - we know, we held one that had been running Grid 2 for a number of hours and it was luke warm at most.
There are a multitude of ins and outs to cater for USB components - two super-fast 3.0 connections on the front, two on the back - in addition to a mini DisplayPort and mini HDMI outports and Ethernet.
We saw Grid 2 running in two different set-ups and thought that one has some display lag, whereas the second set-up operated super-smoothly.
Exact configurations aren't 100 per cent concerte at this stage when it comes to things such as hard drive size, RAM and so forth.
The Gigabyte Brix is due for launch this November, and even though pricing isn't official the Gigabyte reps on stand believe the lowest spec Intel i5 3.2Ghz model will retail for $499 (£316 as a straight conversion, but we'd anticipate more). None too bad at all. There will also be 3.7Ghz i5 and 3.9Ghz i7 versions available at greater cost.
