Breaking it Open
Breaking open the BRIX S is as simple as removing four long screws and prying at the bottom of the bottom metal plate. Remember that the BRIX devices come as a bare bones configuration with only the M.2 slot containing an Intel 3160NGW combination wireless/Bluetooth adapter. You will have to buy and install your own mSATA storage device (or 2.5-in drive) and DDR3L memory.
For our testing, Gigabyte included in the box a pair of Kingston HyperX Impact DDR3L-1600 4GB SODIMMs and a 120GB Kingston SSDNow mSATA drive. Installation is as simple and basic as you can get for a DIY user and even the most introductory user should have no problems getting things up and running.
The M.2 wireless card is actually located under the mSATA SSD. The ribbon cable next to the wireless card is for the NFC integration on the top cover of the BRIX, and it is optional, so be sure you look for that detail in the product pages if you are looking to purchase one with or without it.
Taped down during shipping and next to the DIMM slots is a standard SATA data and power connection used for connecting the 2.5-in hard drive. The cable is short, by necessity, so you'll need to be careful during the installation process.
The 2.5-in bay can obviously hold either a hard drive or an SSD and mounts to the bottom metal plate of the BRIX. Likely the best use case for a typical desktop user is to install either a smaller mSATA SSD and then include a 1TB-2TB 7200 RPM hard drive OR go with a larger 512GB SSD in either mSATA or SATA form.
Removing the motherboard from the chassis isn't necessary for any kind of normal installation but we don't like like to leave things without a full warranty invalidation. The underside holds the Broadwell processor and board power delivery hardware, all covered by the small heatsink and blower style fan.
With all the hardware tucked in nicely, it was time to power it on and see how the new architecture performs and what to expect from a user experience.
Why is it none of these new
Why is it none of these new “NUC style” machines have dual gigabit NICs? Looking for a small/efficient/fast PFSense machine…
Unless you require Intel
Unless you require Intel NIC’s, one could simply add a USB 3.0 Gb ethernet adapter for $20-30. Driver support should be the only real hurdle.
id expect usb3 driver support
id expect usb3 driver support for nics to be pretty crappy in a tiny linux distro like pfsense
It’s even worse than a tiny
It’s even worse than a tiny Linux distro…it’s actually based on FreeBSD 😛 In the end, a similar mini ITX build is probably a more versatile and much less expensive option.
A couple of the Zotac boxes
A couple of the Zotac boxes do have dual NICs. The EN760 has them, and has been getting fairly good reviews. I think a couple of their other models have them. They aren’t cheap, though. I’ve also been considering one for a PFSense box, but I don’t know if I want to spend the $500+ that they run.
It would be nice if the
It would be nice if the “pricing and availability” section mentioned when these would be available 😉
Do you know? I don’t see any online as of yet.
Valid point – I’ll check!
Valid point – I'll check!
Just got the info: late Feb
Just got the info: late Feb or early March is the expected sale date in the US.
In the video you call the
In the video you call the power input ‘AC power input’.
Surely you mean DC.
Heh, yeah.
Heh, yeah.
I don’t understand this
I don’t understand this statement:
“Intel’s new Broadwell architecture is responsible for a lot of that but Gigabyte deserves credit for including the key input and output features like USB 3.0 and HDMI/DisplayPort”
I have 3 Intel Haswell NUCs, they all have “USB 3.0 and HDMI/DisplayPort”, how does Gigabyte deserve credit for including them?
Just curious if anyone makes
Just curious if anyone makes a NUC size unit with discreet graphics. I travel a lot and I’m looking for the smallest form factor possible on a gaming PC. I understand the limits of all this stuff, just curious if its been done yet.