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John F.

John F.

Joined on 11/11/02

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 37
Most Favorable Review

i7 Brix

GIGABYTE BRIX GB-BXi7-4770R 2 x 204Pin Intel Iris Pro graphics 5200 Mini-PC Barebone
GIGABYTE BRIX GB-BXi7-4770R 2 x 204Pin Intel Iris Pro graphics 5200 Mini-PC Barebone

Pros: well packaged , quick assembly and in less than 15 minutes you are up on 8.1 Pro wireless or wired your choice. I7-4770R Brix worked well killing my two i5 NUCs. It gave me similar scores to my mini itx Silverstone I7-4770K without an installed graphics card. If you are going for a NUC or Brix buy this top end model rather than an I5 one. it is definitely worth the extra bucks both Video 5200 and the faster CPU about the same as an i7-4770k..

Cons: probably my fault but there was a hum in the sound although the sound worked fine. But when no sound on the video I was watching I could not tolerate the hum. I substituted a usb sound device to plug into. this worked perfectly. I need to check this out in more detail. my one NUC that has a sound receptacle has no hum. if Gigabyte's fault which I doubt this is not a deal breaker.

Overall Review: I have a business use. My personal business computer an FX-8350 gets a passmark score of 3800 mildly OCed. This one no vid card , no OC gets 3500 but a fraction of the size. If size matters buy it. My Silverstone mini-itx i7-4770K not as small as this one by a long shot gets 3300. The I7-4770R appears to be about the same as an i7-4770K.

Most Critical Review

not enough info

Pros: Question: How do you plug it in? And to what?

Cons: not enough info to evaluate

11/24/2015

Quick look first ever SM E5-266 MicroAtx Board more detailed to follow.

SUPERMICRO X10SRM-F Micro ATX Server Motherboard R3 (LGA 2011) Intel C612
SUPERMICRO X10SRM-F Micro ATX Server Motherboard R3 (LGA 2011) Intel C612

Pros: Works as expected but for major design flaw. The closeness of the 3 pci express slots makes up to 2 unusable! The design flaw renders board useless for many purposes. But for that the board would get a 5. IS SM going to redesign this board? They certainly know how to CORRECTLY place these slots see their just out x11ssz-f!!

Cons: the three PCI express slots are poorly placed if you are going to install a Video Card. Both 8 slots are below the 16 slot so a modern video card masks the first below for sure. the second 8 slot is also too close the 16 slot so only some cards fit in it. You might end up with ONE usable slot out of 3 if you install a vid card! Contrast this with my last SM purchase of an E3 SM MB X11SSZ-F All 3 slots are usable. one 8 slot is above the 16 so it not get masked and the other is FAR below the 16! I bought the SM heat sink with fan. It is NOT totally noise free! It makes just enough noise to annoy me and when stressed makes a lot of noise. I would next round buy the SM fanless heat sink. We love our x11ssz-f which is totally flawless to date and has no known design flaws. The board does take up to 24 speed mem but only if you use LRDIMM.

Overall Review: We are looking for a use for this board with major design flaw failing which we will return. The original intended use was a vid card in the 16 slot and TWO intel raid controllers in the two 8 slots.

new low power mini

ASRock Beebox N3150/B Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System
ASRock Beebox N3150/B Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System

Pros: works well for its low power and yields better than expected 3d graphics. Runs several programs without lag. Quickly assembled without issue. You need to immediately install the intel video drivers off the disk. For my use we only installed Samsung 2TB hard drive. Disk Speeds are adequate. Expensive msata while much faster would be over kill and not greatly improve overall performance. Price from Newegg with added memory was very good.

Cons: none except I cannot find instructions for the controller. I have no idea how to use it and the hieroglyphics on it saying "release", "open", and "push" are incomprehensible. You cannot forget that it is NOT in the same league as i7 Brix or i7 Nucs. This is low power computing!

Overall Review: Bought to replace intel atom no longer powerful enough for running a 24 hour accounting computer app.+ spread sheets. Does that job well and at same time runs several browser apps without lag. no overheating.Even ok for limited general use. Totally free of any issues.

10/24/2015

Good 2nd machine but obsolete.

Lenovo ThinkServer TS440 70AQ000XUX 5U Tower Server - 1 x Intel Xeon E3-1225 v3 3.20 GHz
Lenovo ThinkServer TS440 70AQ000XUX 5U Tower Server - 1 x Intel Xeon E3-1225 v3 3.20 GHz

Pros: Can access while turned off. Great hot swaps. Using F12 key very easy multiple boots. Is an Xeon processor & Reasonably fast and snappy. Plenty of room for further hard drives over 4 it is set up for if you overcome PSU issues.

Cons: Obsolete DDR3 Mem. Obsolete E3 CPU and the weakest one with no hyperthreading. The lines off the PSU do not allow expansion or an advanced Video Card so you have to tinker. Only SAS 6gb/s instead of the new 12gb/s. O.K. for second machine. Make first an E5 costing about $1000.

Overall Review: I bought mine elsewhere for $300 as they are a glut on Lenovo's inventory as they become more obsolete. Do not over pay. Price out on Newegg an E5 with similar power CPU and SuperMircro keyboard about $1000.Then you get hyperthreading, DDR4 memory and 12 gb/s SAS. i.e. the cutting edge not last decade's product.

Fast BUT ISSUES

Samsung 256GB SM951 Single Sided 80mm (2280/2280SS) M.2 PCI Express 3.0 x4 (PCIe Gen3 x4) SSD - AHCI Version - MZHPV256HDGL
Samsung 256GB SM951 Single Sided 80mm (2280/2280SS) M.2 PCI Express 3.0 x4 (PCIe Gen3 x4) SSD - AHCI Version - MZHPV256HDGL

Pros: Used on an X99 MB - Asrock X99-ITX/AC fast, does quick install of a fresh win 10 with no issues, takes up no room. took my overall Passmark Score from an inexpensive crucial M2 at one third the price 5300 up to 6100. The harddrive score doubled from 3500 to 7072.

Cons: The published Passmark Score is 10,600 but I only got 7072. If you are doing hard work or test it continuously to simulate hard work the 7072 hard drive score goes way down unless you continually defrag it. The scores of NVMe Intel SSDPEDMW40 were much better at 11,700 and 11,900. Therefore total scores on Passmark were higher.

Overall Review: It suits me to keep it as I have it in a Mini X99 case with limited room & only one slot dedicated to the Video Card. Given the serious degradation of performance with heavy continuous use if you do not continually defrag I would get INTEL's for an ATX board.