Gigabyte Brix - Haswell. Noise levels?

Got a shopping cart of parts that you want opinions on? Get advice from members on your planned or existing system (or upgrade).

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
smilingcrow
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1809
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2004 1:45 am
Location: At Home

Gigabyte Brix - Haswell. Noise levels?

Post by smilingcrow » Tue Feb 11, 2014 2:45 pm

Anyone have a Brix be it Ivy Bridge or Haswell?
I'm looking for the taller one as I want to use a HDD rather than a mSATA drive so hopefully the extra volume aids cooling.
The Intel NUC sounds quiet judging by the SPCR review and has BIOS fan control which helps.
I downloaded the BRIX manual and there's no mention of the BIOS at all.

CA_Steve
Moderator
Posts: 7650
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Gigabyte Brix - Haswell. Noise levels?

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Feb 11, 2014 3:57 pm

Definately look for reviews before buying your specific Brix model/CPU. Some are quiet, some aren't.

Anandtech on the Brix Pro.
The presence of the Core i7-4770R in such a small form factor / chassis left us worried initially. We were wondering whether the unit would be able to properly cool down a 65W TDP processor within those constraints. Due to the size of the system, the fan had to be pretty small and rotate at high speeds for effective cooling. With a maximum speed of 4090 rpm, the sound from the unit was similar to what one would expect in a mini-server room (matching the noise from the Netgear GSM 7352S that we have running in our NAS testbed). While running various benchmarks, the speed topped out around 3900 rpm.
The unit does seem to throttle under full load of both the CPU and GPU (an unrealistic workload, admittedly, but one which some of the other systems we have evaluated have passed with flying colours). Now, the results that we obtained for the four passes of our x264 benchmark run were pretty consistent. It might turn out that normal workloads don't trigger the throttling and it is something we hope to evaluate further down the road.
Techspot on the IVB Brix Mini
The Gigabyte Brix consumes very little power as its mobile Core i5-3337U pulls just 12 watts at idle, almost 3.5x less than the Pentium G2020, and only 37 watts at full load, nearly 40% less than the G2020.

When left to idle, the Brix operated at just 39 degrees, which isn't bad given how thin its heatsink is and more importantly, how quiet the whole system is. However, its temperature quickly soared to 78 degrees when under load via Prime95.

smilingcrow
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1809
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2004 1:45 am
Location: At Home

Re: Gigabyte Brix - Haswell. Noise levels?

Post by smilingcrow » Tue Feb 11, 2014 4:11 pm

Thanks CA_Steve.
I’m looking at the Brix not the Pro version. It will likely be a Haswell Celeron or an i3 at the most as it’s for a HTPC and other light usage.
I had read the Techspot review but have no reference for what their subjective opinion of quiet is.
39C at idle for the Ivy Bridge version bodes well as it consumes more power and the case is the smaller format.
It’s a risk so I may pay more and buy it from somehow where I can return it no questions asked just in case.

I’m also considering a Lenovo IdeaCentre Q190 Nettop:
http://www.ebuyer.com/579405-lenovo-ide ... c-57321761

CA_Steve
Moderator
Posts: 7650
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Gigabyte Brix - Haswell. Noise levels?

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Feb 11, 2014 7:52 pm

I'm hoping some more NUC-sized cases come out with better cooling options ala HDPLEX.

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: Gigabyte Brix - Haswell. Noise levels?

Post by Abula » Tue Feb 11, 2014 8:45 pm

CA_Steve wrote:I'm hoping some more NUC-sized cases come out with better cooling options ala HDPLEX.
A little bigger than the nuk, but pretty solid for someone looking for making the nuk passive and adding a 2.5hdd, Akasa Tesla H Fanless Solid Aluminum NUC Case - VESA Mountable (A-NUC05-A1B)

CA_Steve
Moderator
Posts: 7650
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Gigabyte Brix - Haswell. Noise levels?

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Feb 11, 2014 9:38 pm

Oh yeah. Forgot about that. Here's bit-tech's review of the Newton version.

Tephras
Posts: 1140
Joined: Tue Sep 07, 2004 11:03 am
Location: Europe

Re: Gigabyte Brix - Haswell. Noise levels?

Post by Tephras » Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:56 am

Techpowerup has a review of the passively cooled NUC case from Tranquil PC.

The Silverstone prototype shown a year ago was said to be passive, now when it's in production it turns out it comes with a fan. Passive cooling might still be possible as the fan is removable and the top cover has an integrated heat-pipe, but the fins and the case in itself seems to be a bit on the small side - Silverstone's PT14 has a weight of 322g while the Akasa Newton is almost 1kg.

smilingcrow
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1809
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2004 1:45 am
Location: At Home

Re: Gigabyte Brix - Haswell. Noise levels?

Post by smilingcrow » Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:46 pm

Abula wrote:
CA_Steve wrote:I'm hoping some more NUC-sized cases come out with better cooling options ala HDPLEX.
A little bigger than the nuk, but pretty solid for someone looking for making the nuk passive and adding a 2.5hdd, Akasa Tesla H Fanless Solid Aluminum NUC Case - VESA Mountable (A-NUC05-A1B)
Thanks; on pre-order in the UK. The cost is starting to climb a lot with these sort of enclosures as the pricing on the motherboards alone is not much less than for the kit. This is more of a budget build as not sure if it's a long term solution.

Post Reply