Gigabyte’s mini gaming PC reviewed
Mini desktops are a growing market, but so far it’s a market that Intel has had the run of. The company’s own “Next Unit of Computing” (NUC) and efforts like Gigabyte’s Brix Pro are diminutive but much more capable than the wimpy “nettops” of yesteryear.
Now it’s time for AMD to get in on the fun. The company sent us two Gigabyte mini PCs that are roughly the same size as the Intel versions, but these machines use AMD A8 chips instead of Intel ones. While the smaller, cheaper GB-BXA8-5545 (which we’ll be reviewing in full in a separate piece) is basically just an AMD version of the NUC, the Brix Gaming (yes, that’s the device’s full name) is something else altogether. The race-car-red machine combines AMD’s CPU with a true dedicated AMD GPU, promising a level of graphics performance that we haven’t yet seen in a mini desktop.