GIGABYTE BRIX Gaming UHD GB-BNi7HG4-950 mini-PC Review
by Ganesh T S on October 28, 2016 7:30 AM ESTPower Consumption and Thermal Performance
The power consumption at the wall was measured with a 1080p display being driven through the HDMI port. In the graphs below, we compare the idle and load power of the GIGABYTE GB-BNi7HG4-950 with other gaming mini-PCs evaluated before. For load power consumption, we ran both our custom stress test and the AIDA64 System Stability Test with various stress components, and noted the maximum sustained power consumption at the wall.
The power consumption numbers tally well with the capabilities of the system.
Our thermal stress routine starts with the system at idle, followed by four stages of different system loading profiles using the AIDA64 System Stability Test (each of 30 minutes duration). In the first stage, we stress the CPU, caches and RAM. In the second stage, we add the GPU to the above list. In the third stage, we stress the GPU standalone. In the final stage, we stress all the system components (including the disks). Beyond this, we leave the unit idle in order to determine how quickly the various temperatures in the system can come back to normal idling range. The various clocks, temperatures and power consumption numbers for the system during the above routine are presented in the graphs below.
According to the official specifications, the junction temperature of the Core i7-6700HQ is 100C. We see that the temperature of the package is kept well below that number, without any throttling of the clocks. In order to make sure that we weren't overstimating the cooling capabilities of the system, we also processed our custom stress test that proesses a more strenuous workload for the GPU, RAM and the GPU (but, not the other parts of the system).
It is heartening to note that the thermal design is indeed very effective even in our unnatural power-virus test. The cores keep running at higher than the rated base clock (3.1 GHz instead of 2.5 GHz). The other interesting aspect is that the temperatures go down to below 30C for all the components in less than 30 minutes after the load is removed. The drives also maintain very reasonable temperatures in the system. On the whole, the thermal design of the unit is very impressive.
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BrokenCrayons - Monday, October 31, 2016 - link
Presumably it's in the hopper with the RX 470 and RX 460. AT already struck an Polaris deep dive off the list due to a lack of information, but there should be a GPU review or two coming in the future. Until then, a lot of other sites have already posted their 1050 review. AT's parent compay, Purch, also owns Tom's Hardware Guide and they have a pretty good review of the 1050 and the Ti variant.powerarmour - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
$1000?, what a complete rip off.1_rick - Saturday, October 29, 2016 - link
Nonsense. Miniaturization always costs more, and if for some reason you don't want a big tower case on your desk, this fits the bill quite nicely. The small size makes it portable too, if you feel the need to bring it places.powerarmour - Saturday, October 29, 2016 - link
Seriously, I could build a much more powerful Mini-ITX system for way less money.It's a complete joke.
Notmyusualid - Sunday, October 30, 2016 - link
Miniaturization is a joke? Or costs no extra money, which is it?"I could build, I could build." Yeah well, get building, hand it over the Anand, and let us see how your review compares.
Otherwise its just pipe dreams.
1_rick - Sunday, October 30, 2016 - link
Exactly. I bought a Skull Canyon NUC, and dropped a 500GB SSD and 16GB of RAM. It kicks butt at anything but high-res gaming. It's a huge step up over my work PC, so I even carry it in to the office most days and work on it instead of my work PC.With this Brix, I could game at lunch, too.
powerarmour - Monday, October 31, 2016 - link
Well good for you and your underpowered soap box. For an extra 1cl, you can save half the price and have something that isn't out of MacWorld masturbation weekly.1_rick - Tuesday, November 1, 2016 - link
If you think the Skull Canyon's underpowered, you're quite simply delusional.I can run two separate 6GB VMs with MSSQL apps simultaneously and still game. I mean, I'm not sure why I'd want to, but I can. Oh, but I don't meet Rando Calrissian's use case, so I'm an idiot.
Sure thing, buddy, you've devastated me. I'll console myself with my paycheck.
powerarmour - Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - link
Your definition of 'gaming' on an Intel IGP (even the Iris Pro) and mine live on completely different planets.1_rick - Thursday, November 3, 2016 - link
I get that your entire "argument" such as it is, is "this doesn't meet *my* use case, therefore it's useless," but that's a stupid "argument".