We tested: GIGABYTE BRIX - another brick in the wall

In a bit of a template, we can say that the wall into which the BRIX (not the brick) fits does not separate, but connects us to a new world, a digital world. We can slowly forget the huge, heavy and loud computers, as nowadays miniaturization is what dominates almost every field. Because of this, we are hardly surprised when we get news of another tiny machine. However, it is quite different to get news about such a device, to look at it in the photos, and it is VERY different to hold it.

Perhaps there are many who remember the not-too-distant time when one of the leading fighters of miniaturization was VIA. Tiny, at least by the time, small motherboards with dew-weak processors integrated into them. Still, anyone who really wanted to build a small machine had little choice.

From today's point of view, the mini machines of that time are already huge, at least when compared to a BRIX-sized machine. Let's say it's no wonder, even if we don't just think about how much smaller the GIGABYTE BRIX motherboard can be than a motherboard at the time. Much more has changed.

One of the perhaps most important changes is that the importance of optical drives has declined sharply. When we thought the DVD was over, the new savior would be Blu-ray, it turned out that USB-based storage devices were much easier to use media. And nowadays they are already here, USB drives based on SSD are stumbling on the doorstep, though the goods are still quite peppery.

And if you’re already on the SSD, you might immediately think of the next piece of hardware that was essential for a few years, and that’s nothing more than a hard drive. True, 2,5-inch notebook drives already existed at the time, but their size is still huge compared to the mSATA SSD drives that are becoming cheaper nowadays.

And what is the third item to which we can attribute the size reduction? Of course, integration! Nowadays, manufacturers are cramming more and more into the central unit, the CPU. You no longer need a graphics card, no need for a separate chip to make room for the memory controller. What’s more, the often-mentioned Pentium 4 bankruptcy is also here, that is, a period when Intel realized that it was much more profitable to increase the number of processor cores than to insanely raise clocks. Of course, the resulting reduction in heat production would not be enough, it was also necessary for new technologies to enter production, and also for the bandwidth to be reduced.

The result of all these changes is now resting here on my desk. Elegant black box with a large blue BRIX inscription.