Gigabyte Introduces Passively Cooled Brix Mini PC With Core i3

Gigabyte has announced the Brix GB-EKi3A-7100, its first fanless model in its line of mini PCs to feature a Core processor. The compact barebone contains an economical Core i3-7100U of the Kaby Lake generation.

The housing of the GB-EKi3A-7100 measures 180x117x36mm and the weight is 978 grams. The tdp of the Core i3-7100U is 15W and the HD Graphics 620 is the integrated gpu of this processor. There are two so-dimm slots for ddr4 memory up to 32GB and there is an m2 2280 connection for a storage medium, while a second .m2 slot is occupied by the wifi-ac and bluetooth card.

Furthermore, the barebone has USB 3.1-c, USB 3.1-a and USB 3.0. There is also standard HDMI, mini-displayport and a gigabit-lan port. The presence of a com port reveals that Gigabyte is not primarily aimed at consumers: the company is pushing the PC forward as a system for internet-of-things applications, including payment terminals, kiosks and advertising systems.

It is not the first fanless Brix, notes FanlessTech: an earlier model with Intel Apollo Lake-soc is less powerful, but does have a memory card reader and second Ethernet port.