I don't think you can get an i7 in the Alpha r2...not that it really matters for gaming, but the extra horsepower of the i7-6700HQ in the Brix might help its GTX950 creep up on the GTX960 in the Alpha r2.
But I agree, they are similar in almost every other aspect (even size) and the Alpha r2 is cheaper.
Regarding the last comment about going with the Skull Canyon NUC + External GPU. I'm not sure that is really a better solution. It's true that it gives the user the option of adding more graphics power (and easy upgradability), on the other side it also requires buying a discrete graphics card which is not as straight-forward as on desktops. This is because you are restricted on one side by the soldered CPU (which you can not change, thought the Skull Canyon NUC cpu should not be a problem for some time) and on another side by the bandwidth between the system and the external enclosure (just 4 lanes of PCIE 3.0 bandwidth). This last point makes it hard to figure out on what graphics card is actually the best for your restrictions. So instead of a selection of all the graphics cards up to the power limit of the enclosure you have to figure out which ones do actually offer the best price-performance. I.e of course you can drop a Titan there but will the difference to a GTX 965M (over the 16 lanes of PCIE) be significant?
Regarding this last point, would it be possible to test external enclosures and figure out actual metrics for the performance gains?
I'm typing this on my Skull Canyon NUC, and have a Razer Core, and having read the benchmarks before buying, the PCIe4x limitation is surprisingly small. IIRC, it's somewhere in the ballpark of 10-15% or so, and that doesn't really change when going from a 980's to a 1080 either. It makes sense when you think about it... you're essentially transferring textures, shaders, and a bunch of vector information to the GPU for rendering... and that will be pretty much constant regardless of if you're rendering the output at 720@30hz or 4K@60hz.
maybe they were comparing it to the lower clocked 965m... There is a 540Mhz version, that is definitely slower than 950, despite having more cuda cores
I know it's annoying to request reviews from a site but please if you have the time when the Zotac Magnus EN1080 comes out, a review of it would be so nice. I am sure other sites will be doing it but it is nice to see the anandtech view. I want a really small pc for living room use so I was going to get a laptop and external gpu dock when at home, but then if this new zotac is just as good as a laptop with external gpu dock, I won't have to do that and it looks small but hard to tell from the marketing pictures.
That was the review configuration supplied. It is not limited by design, so the end-user can always add an additional SODIMM stick for around $50 or so.
GTX 950 is already irrelevant thanks to GTX 1050... which beats RX 460... which makes Raven Ridge obsolete before it's ever launched. Seems like a common theme for AMD.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nobody really cares about reviews of mini pcs as evidenced by the comments section, but Anandtech just keep churning them out. Good job guys another step towards oblivion. How long before you suffer the same fate as Daily tech I wonder?
It's already done for, there is literally nothing here worth reading any more, and nothing like how it used to be.
I don't know why I even bother to comment really, often it's in the vain hope that someone is reading that feels that same way, but hey, no-one seems to care.
From time to time they post some many paged in depth reviews worth to read(even if they are a few months behind to other tech sites:) but yeah, this site got super average since Anand and others have left :(.
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StevoLincolnite - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
nVidia must be giving these GPU's away. Such a missed opportunity not going with Pascal.aj654987 - Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - link
Alienware Alpha r2 with the gtx 960 desktop GPU is a better deal than this.Samus - Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - link
I don't think you can get an i7 in the Alpha r2...not that it really matters for gaming, but the extra horsepower of the i7-6700HQ in the Brix might help its GTX950 creep up on the GTX960 in the Alpha r2.But I agree, they are similar in almost every other aspect (even size) and the Alpha r2 is cheaper.
setzer - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
Regarding the last comment about going with the Skull Canyon NUC + External GPU.I'm not sure that is really a better solution.
It's true that it gives the user the option of adding more graphics power (and easy upgradability), on the other side it also requires buying a discrete graphics card which is not as straight-forward as on desktops. This is because you are restricted on one side by the soldered CPU (which you can not change, thought the Skull Canyon NUC cpu should not be a problem for some time) and on another side by the bandwidth between the system and the external enclosure (just 4 lanes of PCIE 3.0 bandwidth).
This last point makes it hard to figure out on what graphics card is actually the best for your restrictions. So instead of a selection of all the graphics cards up to the power limit of the enclosure you have to figure out which ones do actually offer the best price-performance. I.e of course you can drop a Titan there but will the difference to a GTX 965M (over the 16 lanes of PCIE) be significant?
Regarding this last point, would it be possible to test external enclosures and figure out actual metrics for the performance gains?
wavetrex - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
I wonder if I can build a house out of these bricks ... excuse me, Brix :)Joking aside, very few people would know it's an actual computer.
nico_mach - Monday, October 31, 2016 - link
It's a SQUARE trash can! Progress! Where's the pedal, tho?hubick - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
I'm typing this on my Skull Canyon NUC, and have a Razer Core, and having read the benchmarks before buying, the PCIe4x limitation is surprisingly small. IIRC, it's somewhere in the ballpark of 10-15% or so, and that doesn't really change when going from a 980's to a 1080 either. It makes sense when you think about it... you're essentially transferring textures, shaders, and a bunch of vector information to the GPU for rendering... and that will be pretty much constant regardless of if you're rendering the output at 720@30hz or 4K@60hz.aj654987 - Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - link
why would you even bother with that, might as well build an itx for less money and less clutter.hojnikb - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
Guys, are there any passive mini pcs coming out with kaby lake ?TheinsanegamerN - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
there are no PCs period with kaby lake yet. kaby lake isnt out yet.hojnikb - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
Yes there are. There are a bunch of laptops using kaby lake cpus.wintermute000 - Saturday, October 29, 2016 - link
none with quad core though - all are dual core Uhojnikb - Sunday, October 30, 2016 - link
Doesn't really matter, fact is kaby lake is out.cosmotic - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
If these articles never used the phrase 'business end' again, I would be a happy camper.Klug4Pres - Tuesday, November 1, 2016 - link
I consider myself to be a linguistic pedant, but can't see much wrong with "business end".It's a lot better than "happy camper", that's for sure, but no doubt you were being ironic.
Samus - Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - link
Booya.RaichuPls - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
How is a GTX 950 equivalent to a GTX 965m? 768 CUDA vs 1024 CUDA...hojnikb - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
maybe they were comparing it to the lower clocked 965m... There is a 540Mhz version, that is definitely slower than 950, despite having more cuda coresalphasquadron - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
I know it's annoying to request reviews from a site but please if you have the time when the Zotac Magnus EN1080 comes out, a review of it would be so nice. I am sure other sites will be doing it but it is nice to see the anandtech view. I want a really small pc for living room use so I was going to get a laptop and external gpu dock when at home, but then if this new zotac is just as good as a laptop with external gpu dock, I won't have to do that and it looks small but hard to tell from the marketing pictures.coder111 - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
What about a similar build with a Fractal Design 202 case and Radeon RX 480 or RX 470?How would it compare in terms of size or performance? Or price?
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, November 1, 2016 - link
well, size wise, the brix wins hands down. That isnt even up for debate.Samus - Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - link
I can't not look at the thing and just think Gigabyte was clearly inspired by the Silverstone FT03-mini with this thing.They made a "mini" FT03-mini.
fanofanand - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
$1160 with single channel RAM. Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.ganeshts - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
That was the review configuration supplied. It is not limited by design, so the end-user can always add an additional SODIMM stick for around $50 or so.TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, November 1, 2016 - link
at that price, dual channel should be included by default. My gaming laptop cost less then this thing.Lolimaster - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
They know that once Raven Ridge ZEN APU arrives, any small pc with discrete gpu is done.hojnikb - Saturday, October 29, 2016 - link
not really. raven will be at best at performance levels of a rx460, so plenty of room therewintermute000 - Saturday, October 29, 2016 - link
yeah but enough to make a GTX950 irrelevant IF that is the caseThe_Assimilator - Saturday, October 29, 2016 - link
GTX 950 is already irrelevant thanks to GTX 1050... which beats RX 460... which makes Raven Ridge obsolete before it's ever launched. Seems like a common theme for AMD.meorah - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link
gtx 1050 ti review anytime soon?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".powerarmour - Thursday, November 3, 2016 - link
No, wrong again my dear letch-worthy friend, it's not useless, just overpriced for what it is, and it's size above common sense.I'd guess neither of which you're entirely comfortable with.
aj654987 - Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - link
Still overpriced compared to the alienware alpha r2 which was released a few months ago.Duto - Sunday, October 30, 2016 - link
Beautiful!, Another awesome Gigabyte product.powerarmour - Tuesday, November 1, 2016 - link
Cool story bro, do you work for them too?Ranger1065 - Monday, October 31, 2016 - link
Nobody really cares about reviews of mini pcs as evidenced by the comments section, but Anandtech just keep churning them out. Good job guys another step towards oblivion.How long before you suffer the same fate as Daily tech I wonder?
powerarmour - Monday, October 31, 2016 - link
It's already done for, there is literally nothing here worth reading any more, and nothing like how it used to be.I don't know why I even bother to comment really, often it's in the vain hope that someone is reading that feels that same way, but hey, no-one seems to care.
milkod2001 - Tuesday, November 1, 2016 - link
From time to time they post some many paged in depth reviews worth to read(even if they are a few months behind to other tech sites:) but yeah, this site got super average since Anand and others have left :(.Findecanor - Friday, November 4, 2016 - link
You don't speak for me.zodiacfml - Monday, October 31, 2016 - link
Price fails it again. Beaten by an ASUS $995 gaming laptop.Sailor23M - Tuesday, November 15, 2016 - link
Skull Canyon is the way to go for me, light gaming with awesome general everyday performance. Anybody see those on sale? Cheapest I can get is $575.