Gigabyte launches the "most powerful" mini PC in the world: the Brix Extreme

Humza

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In a nutshell: Gigabyte says the new Brix Extreme mini PC is the most powerful of its kind in the world, a bold claim in the face of Apple's recently released mini but mighty Mac Studio. However, as a Windows PC, the Brix Extreme seems to pack quite a punch, given that it's running Intel's latest mobile silicon and is fairly loaded in terms of connectivity.

Arriving in Q2 this year for a TBD price, Gigabyte's new Brix Extreme is poised to offer lots of computing power in a compact (44 x 134 x 139 mm) footprint. This mini PC is also designed to be quiet, which according to Gigabyte's internal testing, was able to keep noise levels under 30dB while under load and peaked at 35dB with the CPU boost mode enabled.

Underneath sits Intel's 12th-gen Core mobile processors, starting from a 6C/8T i3 all the way up to a 12C/16T i7 chip. Although no RAM capacity is specified, the mini PC will support DDR4 dual-channel 3200MHz memory. A discrete GPU option is absent (unsurprisingly), but Gigabyte does note a 10 percent increase in performance of Intel's Iris Xe graphics over prior models.

Moreover, the Brix Extreme is able to connect with up to four 4K@60Hz displays and can output at 8K resolution, thanks to HDMI 2.1. Buyers will be able to add an extra 2.5" SSD/HDD if they go for the taller variant, and Gigabyte will also sell an upgrade kit that adds an extra m.2 2280 slot, a LAN port - in addition to the mini PC's 2.5G Ethernet and Wi-Fi 6E connection - and an RS232 port.

To get it out of sight, the Brix Extreme will be bundled with a VESA bracket for mounting on the back of a monitor. There's no word yet on what this mini PC will cost, but expect to pay a pretty penny when it becomes available later this year.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/93909-gigabyte-launches-most-powerful-mini-pc-world-brix.html

 
The mac studio maxed out for GPU can get close to a 3070 to 3080 performance (No where near the 3090 claims Apple made, those are probably hand picked examples for specific software cases) and honestly this looks like it *might* be able to house that level of hardware by running a lot hotter than recommended, but I remain extremely skeptical.

Yet this is one case where Gigabyte might just be basically doing the same thing Apple is doing in reverse: picking a best case scenario where they know they can outmatch the mac studio (Very likely a gaming workload) to make their claims of the most powerful mini pc.

The reality check should be that neither company has any kind of magic sauce: Apple is good at software optimization and energy efficiency and that's where most of their performance claim are notable: they want it to just work to make their claims on little power specifically when doing stuff like video editing, meaning their claims are true where it matters most for Apple customers which might overlook the lack of flexibility and diversity you can get on the PC side with very similar performance that uses more power but can do a much wider variety of tasks.
 
Dimitriid said:
The mac studio maxed out for GPU can get close to a 3070 to 3080 performance (No where near the 3090 claims Apple made, those are probably hand picked examples for specific software cases) and honestly this looks like it *might* be able to house that level of hardware by running a lot hotter than recommended, but I remain extremely skeptical.

Yet this is one case where Gigabyte might just be basically doing the same thing Apple is doing in reverse: picking a best case scenario where they know they can outmatch the mac studio (Very likely a gaming workload) to make their claims of the most powerful mini pc.
Click to expand...

This Brix has an iGPU. It's nowhere close to the Apple thing's GPU. Of course since it's a PC it will play more games. Just slowly.

The reality check should be that neither company has any kind of magic sauce: Apple is good at software optimization and energy efficiency and that's where most of their performance claim are notable: they want it to just work to make their claims on little power specifically when doing stuff like video editing, meaning their claims are true where it matters most for Apple customers which might overlook the lack of flexibility and diversity you can get on the PC side with very similar performance that uses more power but can do a much wider variety of tasks.
Click to expand...

Apple's GPU claims are certainly all about video production and nothing else. They can't claim gaming parity as there are simply not enough games, much less native Apple Silicon games to compare.

You game? You buy a PC (or console if you prefer). I'm nominally and originally a Mac user yet I have 3 gaming PCs. Because they're great at gaming, unlike my Macs.
 
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Alder Lake iGP do not support HDMI 2.1 FRL signals above 18 Gbps natively. Check Intel's official website. CPUs support only 2.0 TMDS speed of 18 Gbps.

The only way this product of Gigabyte could possibly support "8K" over HDMI port is for the motherboard to host level shifter chip, which would convert DisplayPort 1.4 signal into HDMI 2.1 FRL above 18 Gbps; something similar to what Xbox SX has on its MB.

Gigabyte's advert clearly reads "Ultra HD HDMI 2.1", which means 4K/60 8-bit RGB and not 8K anything. This product, therefore, could support 8K over DisplayPort 1.4 usb-c and mini-DP, with DSC. Be aware of dubious marketing.

Unless they disclose whether the motherboard hosts level sgifter chip for above 18 Gbps signals.
 
SirDigby said:
Not too shabby, if the thunderbolt supports eGPU then could be a winner.
Click to expand...

There's no reason that any TB wouldn't support an eGPU. But having gamed many times with an eGPU, it's very game dependent. Lots of DX11 games don't lose too much performance from the TB3 link but quite a few DX12 and Vulkan games (or maybe just newer games) seem to have a real bottleneck that caps framerates. Using a GTX 1080 in a 4c8t 3.6 GHz system, RDR2 is pretty bad with 30s for framerates in town, HZD was better but still frequently lower than 60fps. CP2077 was actually OK considering how taxing it is on the GPU compared to the others, with 50s achieved.

In the end I found it bothers me that eGPU gaming leaves a variable amount of performance on the table and with a desktop system like this Brix, just build a real gaming PC instead. If you want to go laptop-only and hook an eGPU up at home to a big external screen, then this seems OK... But with cloud syncs, really a gaming PC in a small case is still better IMO.
 
SirDigby said:
Not too shabby, if the thunderbolt supports eGPU then could be a winner.
Click to expand...
Do not forget that TB3 has PCIe 3.0 x4 bandwidth which is ~32 Gbps, four times less than desktop GPUs running on normal motherboard with x16 slot. Plus overhead. You effectively get ~28 Gbps. Whatever GPU you install in eGPU enclosure, it will transmit data four times slower than typical x16 slot.
Performance hit is guaranteed, especially in higher resolutions.
[HEADING=3]Plus, what @Lew Zealand said.[/HEADING]
 
Mini-PC market will boom with Rembrandt APUs. It's going to be an absolute hit with RDNA2 iGP! 1080p native rendering and then upscaling. Low end GPUs and clunky PC cases will finally die, forever.

It's one of those moments like change from HDDs to NVMe SSDs.
 
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Gomario said:
Why on Earth would you build a mini PC using a processor with such a High TDP/Watt? Wrong choice! I wonder who will buy this thing?
Click to expand...
Where is the power rating? I did a search for TDP, power or watt on this article and nothing came up other than in the comment section. So how much power does the CPU in this computer consume? What are you typing outrage about something you are assuming? How can people form opinions without objective data?
 
Bobbydpue said:
Based on what? There were no performance metrics given so how could you form your opinion on a product without data to support it?
Click to expand...
This is P class CPU, so 28W and boost to 64W. It does not need to run hot. It can certianly run general computing well.

But its iGP is inadequate for 1080p gaming. RDNA2 iGP from Rembrandt APUs will be a steal on those mini-PCs, with much better gaming and graphics performance.

Watch a few youtube videos from ETA PRIME to see how well RDNA2 graphics performs from APU.
 
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Bobbydpue said:
Is it marketed as a Hi-Fi music content streaming machine? Nope. So I don't see what point you are trying to make.



"There's no word yet on what this mini PC will cost" What price?
Click to expand...
It is, maybe you missed that:
Second window in the PR screenshot.

It is a problem in general and not only Gigabyte is reusing more than decade old Realteks in their new mainboards.
The Realtek 897 should not exist in 2022, at least lowly 1150 could be considered as usable.
 
You'll not edit video with this. You'll not do serious gaming with this. You will browse the web, watch YouTube videos, edit documents, and stream music... all of which can be done quite comfortably on yesterday's fare. So, why pay a premium? Now, if this is priced to compete with yesterday's fare, well then, by all means, lets see this completely take over the NUC market. #StratgicSufficiency
 
sorten said:
Intel CPUs in a thermally constrained environment have no chance against Apple's M1.
Click to expand...
Hardware wise, M1 seems like a good choice. Depends on what you do on your computer ... or if you want built in memory redundancy, for example.
 
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