GIGABYTE BRIX Gaming UHD GB-BNi7HG4-950 mini-PC Review
by Ganesh T S on October 28, 2016 7:30 AM ESTPerformance Metrics - II
In this section, we mainly look at benchmark modes in programs used on a day-to-day basis, i.e, application performance and not synthetic workloads.
x264 Benchmark
First off, we have some video encoding benchmarks courtesy of x264 HD Benchmark v5.0. This is simply a test of CPU performance. Similar to what we saw in the previous section, the Skull Canyon NUC configuration manages to score better than the BRIX Gaming UHD.
7-Zip
7-Zip is a very effective and efficient compression program, often beating out OpenCL accelerated commercial programs in benchmarks even while using just the CPU power. 7-Zip has a benchmarking program that provides tons of details regarding the underlying CPU's efficiency. In this subsection, we are interested in the compression and decompression MIPS ratings when utilizing all the available threads.
TrueCrypt
As businesses (and even home consumers) become more security conscious, the importance of encryption can't be overstated. CPUs supporting the AES-NI instruction can accelerate the encryption and decryption processes. The Core i7-6700HQ does have AES-NI support. TrueCrypt, a popular open-source disk encryption program can take advantage of the AES-NI capabilities. The TrueCrypt internal benchmark provides some interesting cryptography-related numbers. The AES speeds are graphed below. This is a purely CPU feature / clock speed based test. In this particular case, the BRIX seems to be handicapped due to the usage of only one SODIMM slot.
Agisoft Photoscan
Agisoft PhotoScan is a commercial program that converts 2D images into 3D point maps, meshes and textures. The program designers sent us a command line version in order to evaluate the efficiency of various systems that go under our review scanner. The command line version has two benchmark modes, one using the CPU and the other using both the CPU and GPU (via OpenCL). The benchmark takes around 50 photographs and does four stages of computation:
- Stage 1: Align Photographs
- Stage 2: Build Point Cloud (capable of OpenCL acceleration)
- Stage 3: Build Mesh
- Stage 4: Build Textures
We record the time taken for each stage. Since various elements of the software are single threaded, others multithreaded, and some use GPUs, it is interesting to record the effects of CPU generations, speeds, number of cores, DRAM parameters and the GPU using this software.
Dolphin Emulator
Wrapping up our application benchmark numbers is the Dolphin Emulator benchmark mode results. This is again a test of the single-threaded performance. The higher base clock speed of the Core i5-6400 and the higher power budget (65W vs. 45W) allow the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN980 to come out on top in this benchmark.
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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".