Seems like the HDMI should have been a default port, but I suppose the adapter (bright yellow as it is) solves the HTPC aspect. I would think this would make a nice light duty Steambox or retrogaming machine for the living room.
A small bit of advice with your device photos, use moderate incandescent ambient lighting instead of a flash, and a camera with good macro on a tripod. You'll get warmer product shots with better detail (and less reflection on the shiny black devices). Some of those product shots are a little hard to make out.
Wow, $800+ and no SSD or Windows license? Holy cow. Why not just pickup a Lenovo M93p w/ i7-4765T for hundreds less with an SSD and Windows 8, or if size isn't a concern, an SFF with a discrete Radeon, for even less. Is Intel really charging these OEM's $400 for these i7-4770R's?
Zotac, at least in recent years, has tended to put a pretty high premium on their hardware (IMHO). I remember them as being more of a budget-minded company, 3-5 years ago, when I used their motherboards in a few system builds. But lately, they seem to have swung to the other end of the spectrum, demanding Asus-like prices. Not sure if their hardware reliability is up to their premium price these days, though. Of course, putting that stick of ram and 1TB hard drive in there probably drove the price up a couple hundred dollars. **sigh**
"the two wired GbE ports open up various interesting applications for this powerful mini-PC" So what kinds of interesting applications would these be?
I'm not being snarky, genuinely curious. When I started reading the specs for this, the thing that stood out the most to me were the two LAN ports - how would one utilize those on a machine like this?
way to expensive (and overkill) to be a router. While the footprint of this is perfect in size, you could build an ITX based system for far less and probably add a 4 port nic in the open PCIe slot.
He states an exact scenario where this is useful in the article:
"I have been using the unit as a virtualization platform, running a Windows 7 VM and a CentOS 6.2 VM simultaneously, each of them with a dedicated wired network link. The in-built Wi-Fi is used for the host OS."
Personally, I don't use VMs often, but I do like bandwidth for other reasons. The desktops/HTPCs in my house have dual gigabit ports to facilitate large file transfers and backups as quickly as possible. It's nice to have.
I've never used dual-NIC's outside of Hyper-V. Failover...for what? Exactly how often do NIC's fail? This isn't an enterprise-class device. If you need failover or an additional port, these plenty of USB 3.0 ports you can add a gigabit NIC too...
Bonding multiple NIC's only improves the *aggregate* bandwidth, not an individual connection's bandwidth. As such, it's only of use on a NAS, where you may have multiple clients connecting and transferring data. Each client can only transfer at the rate of a single NIC.
I've been looking for a SFF machine with dual gigabit nics. Having the 2nd nic is great for an ESXi home lab environment. Sure, you can pile it all on one nic, but the 2nd makes it so much better, IMO.
just a quick comment from a BI standpoint - I think it would be a better presentation to flip your ranking for charts where "lower numbers are better". Having the "1st Place" ranking at the bottom of the chart is opposite from the rest of the charts. Having it at the top presents a consistent message.
Regarding the content, all measurments show the Brix to be a better performer (aside from wifi) with extra throttling. I don't see the point of having an i7 box that cannot run at full tilt.
It's difficult to read the graphs without the information about the gpu(gaming benchmarks) or the cpu(performance metrics) near the name of each machine. You just can't remember each machine's specs. So you just scroll down fast and don't really read them which is really a pity considering the work that is done in this article.
The thing Intel won't accept is that their graphics is substandard, and inferior. And yet they insist on combining the best graphics capabilities on to the most expensive cpus. The very cpus, which are the most likely to NOT use the integrated graphics.
The Iris graphics is great, on a dual core! Not a quad core, and certainly not on a hyper threaded quad core! Intel like Microsoft concentrates too much on forcing everyone to buy the product they want to sell, not selling the products people want to buy.
no one is buying discrete graphics for a mini system like this. You do want the best graphics (focused on video playback) that you can get, but you're not going to change the size profile, nor do you want a hot AMD chip with lower cpu performance either. The gamers...they are getting something different.
This thing would make a ROCKIN htpc. I would have to add a ram stick to make it dual channel and I would want at least a 256GB samsung evo msata for the OS and games and applications, maybe even 512GB considering how large games can be and the fact the standard hdd won't be used. The spinning hard drive can go, much better to have a nas store the massive movie catalog you acquire for watching on the tv. Get an xbox one controller with the windows drivers up and running on it and install emulators for all the older games have full catalogs for mame, atari, nes, snes, genesis, neo geo, gameboy, game gear, nintendo ds, ps1, nintendo 64, psp.
Sure you will end up spending like 1200 dollars when all is said and done on just an HTPC. But this isn't your average HTPC. It's incredibly small and quiet and power efficient and it's the ultimate freakin entertainment hub. And the 1200 pays for itself when you get infinite movies and music albums for free that alone pays itself off. Instead of paying 15-20 per movie and 10 per album all those savings adds up to getting the htpc for free essentially. That's not even counting having a huge full catalog of every retro gaming system at your fingertips to play on your tv as well and with xbox one controllers you don't have to be stuck with bad controls for the old games. Hook up a wireless keyboard and mouse as well and you got great couch surfing abilities as well like that old school webtv device that let you browse the web from the couch.
I could see myself replacing my extremely ghetto full tower htpc that is just an old regular pc repurposed as a htpc. It's a core 2 duo x6800 running at 3.61ghz which when I originally got it 8 years ago was pretty speedy and the gpu it currently has is a little more recent a radeon 4870. I wonder if the iris pro 5200 can beat the dedicated radeon 4870.
I probably won't though. The main issue with this is the broadwell version of these mini pc's is supposed to be hitting stores q1 2015. Secondary issue is replacing my x58 core i7-980x to x99 core i7-5960x is my main priority. I will likely wait and see how the i7-5770r stacks up. Intel always makes a rly nice push on the graphics side when they shrink during a tock. All the extra transistors available allows them to really pump up the integrated gpu. Crystal well's successor should basically make dedicated gpu's totally extinct in htpc's.
Any idea how the the Iris 5200 GPU on those R-CPUs compares to SOA mobile dGPUs, ie. nVidia 8xxMs? Like roughly what's the equivalent GPU power on a notebook level?
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MonkeyPaw - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
Seems like the HDMI should have been a default port, but I suppose the adapter (bright yellow as it is) solves the HTPC aspect. I would think this would make a nice light duty Steambox or retrogaming machine for the living room.A small bit of advice with your device photos, use moderate incandescent ambient lighting instead of a flash, and a camera with good macro on a tripod. You'll get warmer product shots with better detail (and less reflection on the shiny black devices). Some of those product shots are a little hard to make out.
Samus - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
Wow, $800+ and no SSD or Windows license? Holy cow. Why not just pickup a Lenovo M93p w/ i7-4765T for hundreds less with an SSD and Windows 8, or if size isn't a concern, an SFF with a discrete Radeon, for even less. Is Intel really charging these OEM's $400 for these i7-4770R's?marvdmartian - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
Zotac, at least in recent years, has tended to put a pretty high premium on their hardware (IMHO). I remember them as being more of a budget-minded company, 3-5 years ago, when I used their motherboards in a few system builds. But lately, they seem to have swung to the other end of the spectrum, demanding Asus-like prices. Not sure if their hardware reliability is up to their premium price these days, though.Of course, putting that stick of ram and 1TB hard drive in there probably drove the price up a couple hundred dollars. **sigh**
2late2die - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
"the two wired GbE ports open up various interesting applications for this powerful mini-PC"So what kinds of interesting applications would these be?
I'm not being snarky, genuinely curious. When I started reading the specs for this, the thing that stood out the most to me were the two LAN ports - how would one utilize those on a machine like this?
TerdFerguson - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
Network router/switch/bridge? Failover switch for some fault-tolerant system?melvin121 - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
way to expensive (and overkill) to be a router. While the footprint of this is perfect in size, you could build an ITX based system for far less and probably add a 4 port nic in the open PCIe slot.nathanddrews - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
He states an exact scenario where this is useful in the article:"I have been using the unit as a virtualization platform, running a Windows 7 VM and a CentOS 6.2 VM simultaneously, each of them with a dedicated wired network link. The in-built Wi-Fi is used for the host OS."
Personally, I don't use VMs often, but I do like bandwidth for other reasons. The desktops/HTPCs in my house have dual gigabit ports to facilitate large file transfers and backups as quickly as possible. It's nice to have.
Samus - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
I've never used dual-NIC's outside of Hyper-V. Failover...for what? Exactly how often do NIC's fail? This isn't an enterprise-class device. If you need failover or an additional port, these plenty of USB 3.0 ports you can add a gigabit NIC too...ggathagan - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
Bonding multiple NIC's only improves the *aggregate* bandwidth, not an individual connection's bandwidth.As such, it's only of use on a NAS, where you may have multiple clients connecting and transferring data.
Each client can only transfer at the rate of a single NIC.
Chapbass - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
I've been looking for a SFF machine with dual gigabit nics. Having the 2nd nic is great for an ESXi home lab environment. Sure, you can pile it all on one nic, but the 2nd makes it so much better, IMO.Shadowmaster625 - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
Scrolls down to price...Eight HUNDRED frickin dollars!?!?!??!?!??!!!!
Keeps scrolling...
SirKnobsworth - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
Right? You could build a fairly powerful dGPU system for that much. Not nearly as small but still...Chapbass - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
If the "not nearly as small" is not a big deal to you, then you shouldn't be looking at a system like this in the first place.8steve8 - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
noise?BPB - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
I think the model with the i5 and the nVidia mobile chip is a much better deal.Anonymous Blowhard - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
Bingo. The EN760 (i5-4200U + GTX860M) will absolutely massacre this underpowered iGPU rig. And it's still whisper-quiet to boot.Death666Angel - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
Dual Core vs Quad Core? If you need the cores, there is no comparison. If you are looking for just a gaming enabled HTPC, the DC is fine.bitburger - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
With 4K Ultra HD on the box, I would expect to see HDMI 2.0 with support for 4K@60fps.SirKnobsworth - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
DisplayPort 1.2 has no trouble outputting that. I'm more wondering why they bothered including an outdated DVI port.icrf - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
It might, but only at 2:0:0 like everything else claiming to be HDMI 2.0 these days.xdrol - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
"EPIC GAMING" is also on the box..fokka - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
any idea why the brix pro manages to get considerably higher fps, albeit using the same iGPU?NARC4457 - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
just a quick comment from a BI standpoint - I think it would be a better presentation to flip your ranking for charts where "lower numbers are better". Having the "1st Place" ranking at the bottom of the chart is opposite from the rest of the charts. Having it at the top presents a consistent message.Regarding the content, all measurments show the Brix to be a better performer (aside from wifi) with extra throttling. I don't see the point of having an i7 box that cannot run at full tilt.
rituraj - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
Exactly my thoughtsjwcalla - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
Before I clicked the article link I asked myself, "How much you want to bet this thing is ridiculously expensive?"Check!
yannigr2 - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
It's difficult to read the graphs without the information about the gpu(gaming benchmarks) or the cpu(performance metrics) near the name of each machine. You just can't remember each machine's specs. So you just scroll down fast and don't really read them which is really a pity considering the work that is done in this article.leopard_jumps - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
A rig with FX 6300 and GTX 660 wiil outperform that and the price will be lower .Shiitaki - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
The thing Intel won't accept is that their graphics is substandard, and inferior. And yet they insist on combining the best graphics capabilities on to the most expensive cpus. The very cpus, which are the most likely to NOT use the integrated graphics.The Iris graphics is great, on a dual core! Not a quad core, and certainly not on a hyper threaded quad core! Intel like Microsoft concentrates too much on forcing everyone to buy the product they want to sell, not selling the products people want to buy.
bsd228 - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
no one is buying discrete graphics for a mini system like this. You do want the best graphics (focused on video playback) that you can get, but you're not going to change the size profile, nor do you want a hot AMD chip with lower cpu performance either. The gamers...they are getting something different.Laststop311 - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
This thing would make a ROCKIN htpc. I would have to add a ram stick to make it dual channel and I would want at least a 256GB samsung evo msata for the OS and games and applications, maybe even 512GB considering how large games can be and the fact the standard hdd won't be used. The spinning hard drive can go, much better to have a nas store the massive movie catalog you acquire for watching on the tv. Get an xbox one controller with the windows drivers up and running on it and install emulators for all the older games have full catalogs for mame, atari, nes, snes, genesis, neo geo, gameboy, game gear, nintendo ds, ps1, nintendo 64, psp.Sure you will end up spending like 1200 dollars when all is said and done on just an HTPC. But this isn't your average HTPC. It's incredibly small and quiet and power efficient and it's the ultimate freakin entertainment hub. And the 1200 pays for itself when you get infinite movies and music albums for free that alone pays itself off. Instead of paying 15-20 per movie and 10 per album all those savings adds up to getting the htpc for free essentially. That's not even counting having a huge full catalog of every retro gaming system at your fingertips to play on your tv as well and with xbox one controllers you don't have to be stuck with bad controls for the old games. Hook up a wireless keyboard and mouse as well and you got great couch surfing abilities as well like that old school webtv device that let you browse the web from the couch.
I could see myself replacing my extremely ghetto full tower htpc that is just an old regular pc repurposed as a htpc. It's a core 2 duo x6800 running at 3.61ghz which when I originally got it 8 years ago was pretty speedy and the gpu it currently has is a little more recent a radeon 4870. I wonder if the iris pro 5200 can beat the dedicated radeon 4870.
I probably won't though. The main issue with this is the broadwell version of these mini pc's is supposed to be hitting stores q1 2015. Secondary issue is replacing my x58 core i7-980x to x99 core i7-5960x is my main priority. I will likely wait and see how the i7-5770r stacks up. Intel always makes a rly nice push on the graphics side when they shrink during a tock. All the extra transistors available allows them to really pump up the integrated gpu. Crystal well's successor should basically make dedicated gpu's totally extinct in htpc's.
Laststop311 - Monday, August 25, 2014 - link
during a tick i meantHisDivineOrder - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
Why do you refuse to review Steam Streaming with hardware like this that screams for it to be used? ;)rxzlmn - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
Any idea how the the Iris 5200 GPU on those R-CPUs compares to SOA mobile dGPUs, ie. nVidia 8xxMs? Like roughly what's the equivalent GPU power on a notebook level?leopard_jumps - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
GT 840M ,GT 740M ,HD 8750M should do the job