Gigabyte BRIX S GB-BXi5H-5200 Review

Performance Analysis

While the CPU in the BXi5H is a Core i5, you should be under no illusions that it performs anywhere near the levels of a desktop Core i5 such as the Core i5-4690K. In fact, it was considerably slower in all the tests we have back-results of the Intel Core i3-4130 for, while both the Core i5-4690K and Core i7-4790K were in different leagues. It's not all bad news when comparing the BXi5H to low-power desktop CPUs, though, as it wasn't far behind the Pentium G3258 in the overall Media Benchmark score and actually beat it in Cinebench R15 too, undoubtedly due to the Core i5-5200U's four threads compared to the Pentium's two.

Cinebench also gives a clear view of just how much slower the ULV CPU is compared to its desktop counterpart in multi-threaded applications - the Core i5-4690K was over twice as fast. We've only recently started using PCMark 8 for benchmarking but we ran our Broadwell NUC through the same tests to get a feel for the difference between the Core i3 and Core i5. There's a marked difference in both tests, with the extra Turbo speed under load providing a big advantage in the PCMark 8 photo and video encoding tests.


Gaming isn't a strong point of any of Intel's CPUs and while it's gradually closing the gap on AMD's APUs, they're still a long way behind dated APUs such as the A10-5800K. The gap is closing, though -the Ivy Bridge-based Core i5 managed a 29fps minimum frame rate in Left 4 Dead 2 at 720p, with this increasing to 34fps with a Haswell Core i5 and finally to 47fps with a Broadwell Core i5. These are at pretty lowly settings, though. There's also a big difference between the Core i3 and Core i5 as well, with the CPU grunt coming into play and this was very evident in Unigine Valley.

Power consumption is definitely a strong point with Broadwell. Considering the system was powering a hard disk as well, it matched the load power consumption of a Core i3-3217U, so Intel has made huge headway here in the last few generations and with Broadwell in particular. The Kingston SSD didn't prove to be the quickest around and the CrystalDiskMark sequential result was especially disappointing, but Ambros only charges an additional £12 for it compared to a 500GB 2.5in hard disk in its configurator. It's far nippier than a hard disk, though, and does this speed matter in a system like? Almost certainly not.

In any event, with an operating system and all out benchmarks installed, it actually performed very similarly in the other tests to a decent 2.5in SSD, such as the 250GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO in Overclockers UK's Infin8 Nebula PC. Temperatures were noticeably cooler than both older CPUs and Intel's own Core i3-based NUC chassis. However, the BXi5H was also noisier under load compared to the NUC system, especially once you set the NUC to silent mode in its EFI - something you can't tweak on the BXi5H.

Conclusion

We love the fact that you can install a 2.5in hard disk inside the BXi5H. While mSATA SSDs don't demand a huge premium over their 2.5in counterparts, if you need a lot of storage with your mini PC system then the best combination would be an mSATA SSD and 2.5in hard disk. You can of course just use an external hard disk but the whole point of the BXi5H is that you have everything in one tiny package.

Speed-wise, the Core i5 is a much better bet than the Core i3 we saw in Intel's NUC system if you're going to be doing anything other than web browsing and work processing. Even for light photo editing the Core i5 will be considerably faster. That said, the NUC costs around £100 less in barebones form, was quieter and we're pretty sure that the Core i5 version would be just as quiet too seeing as there's very little difference in TDP. Tucked away in a TV cabinet or behind a monitor in an office environment, the BXi5H probably won't be noticeable, even under heavy loads, but the NUC is the one to go for if you want noise kept to a minimum.

We have no qualms recommending Ambros as a system builder for the BRIX too - our build was flawless, you can configure your system and it comes with a 1 year parts and labour warranty. Also, if the Core i5 just doesn't have enough power, there's a Core i7 version too and Gigabyte has also hinted at the possibility of including Nvidia GPUs in future again too. We'll be watching the mini PC market closely this year.