Question 1

Does it come with the Windows 8.1 installation disk?  If so, why not show this in the specs and photos?

Accepted Answer

This is a barebones kit and does not come with an OS installation disk, RAM, or hard drives.  These must be purchased separately.
Make sure you purchase a 64-bit version to take full advantage of the 16GB RAM maximum, as well as to help max out the IRIS Pro 5200's graphical capacity.

Question 2

Do I have to assemble anything or everything is done and I just have to install OS/drivers and good to go?

Accepted Answer

Memory (SODIMMS) and a disk (MSATA, 2.5" SATA drive, or both) have to be installed in this system before you are good to go.

Installation is quite easy - flip the box upside down, remove the four screws holding the bottom on, lift the bottom plate by the small handle provided.  You will notice that you are looking at the bottom of the motherboard and there are very few options - SODIMM slots, Mini PCI-e/MSATA slot, and a SATA cable.

My only warning is to be careful with the SATA cable if you use it.  As shipped the cable is taped to the motherboard.  The hard drive mounts to the plate that you removed, then you must carefuly attach the SATA cable to the drive and reinstall the bottom plate which is now attached to the motherboard by the SATA cable.  Further - you need to remember, if you ever need to open the unit again, to slowly remove the bottom plate in order to prevent removing the SATA cable from the motherboard.

Other than that - it took me all of 15 minutes to assemble the system (I have both a 480GB MSATA SSD drive and a 1TB Samsung 840 EVO drive in the system).  I love my unit ... it runs great as both a Linux box (CentOS) and a Steam Machine!

Question 3

Aside from installing the ssd drive and the ram, does this unit require any other assembly? In other words, are the mobo, cpu, and ports already installed?

Accepted Answer

Yup, this is a barebones system and includes a motherboard and power supply. It includes the wireless adapter (built in) and the CPU (which I believe is soldered to the motherboard). You are only required to buy an drive (mSATA SSD or 2.5" laptop-sized SSD or HDD) and the ram. It is difficult to tell from the product information, but make sure to buy the low voltage (1.35 volts) DDR3 204-pin laptop ram. Half the notebook ram is 1.5v and the other half is 1.35, and the Brix uses 1.35v ram.

Question 4

Does this particular model come with RAM?

Accepted Answer

No - this is a barebones kit that does not come with RAM, a hard drive, or OS.  You will need to buy those separately.
The system has 2 slots for 204-pin DDR3L-SODIMM.  NOTE THE "L" is for low voltage (1.35V).  If you get "normal" voltage RAM (1.5V) you will run the risk of damaging the internal components.  If you're confident, you can run a BIOS update and tweak settings to run normal voltage RAM.
It will accept up to 2x 8GB sticks at 800MHz.  With the aforementioned BIOS updated, you may get better timings/speeds.
The two hard drive slots are an mSATA (ideal for a small OS SSD) and a normal 2.5".
With an SSD, this machine flies.  Do not underestimate the computing power of the i7-4770R, it will destroy most computing tasks.  The Iris Pro 5200HD is roughly equivalent to ~GTX 550, and blows away the nearest integrated GPU solution.  It is no substitute for a mid or high end dedicated graphics card, though.  It will run older games at lower resolutions fine (TF2, DOTA), etc.  It will run Diablo3 at lower settings at 1080 with few hitches.
Hope this helps!
Note: If you're okay with the noise, I would suggest going into the BIOS (after updating) and turning the fans from "Operational" to "Turbo".  This kills the fan speed cap, and makes them spin up more aggressively.  It will be louder, but in real world usage you will not see any throttling.  Watching this thing run 4 HT cores at 3.9GHz is an amazing thing.

Question 5

dose this come with an OS?

Accepted Answer

No it does not.  Try it with a free OS - Ubuntu or (what I did):  Fedora.  These also come with a free Office analog so you are compatible with your Microsoft documents.

Question 6

Is this brix very reliable or will it breakdown very quickly?

Accepted Answer

Hi
From what I can see the build quality is good with only one moving part--the fan.  There is a theoretical reason that the CPU might fail a bit sooner than others--it runs at pretty high temperatures--so maybe it will die in 4 yrs instead of 5.  Time will tell about the life expectancy, but this does not worry me.

Question 7

I am considering this unit. So is the  GIGABYTE GB-BXi5-4570R really that much quieter than this unit? Has anything been done to address the fan noise (BIOS update)?  I plan only to use the system for internet browsing. Some reviewers have said fan noise is an issue even when not playing games. Is the  GIGABYTE GB-BXi5-4570R a better option?

Accepted Answer

Hi.......

If you are planning to use this unit only for browsing the web and light duty computing
then go with the cheaper i5

For the life of me I can understand why ppl are complaining about the fan noise !!!!

the fan only comes on for a moment and yes it is a little louder but what do you want from a i7 with this graphics card and all this horse power in such a small box

Regards Rick

Question 8

Does the audio jack support audio-input?

Accepted Answer

Apologies, Abhishek A.  I could not find a way to edit my previous answer.  It is NOT a line in for the i7-4770R; I was confused with another similar Brix model.  This one, the BXI7-4770R, only does line out / SPDIF from the front port.

Question 9

hello wanted to know if this mini pc supports dual monitors 
since it has 2 ports hdmi and mini display port?

Accepted Answer

1xhdmi and 1xdp works great, or even dual link dp for 3 monitors

Question 10

is this ready to plug moniter keyboard and mouse and play?

Accepted Answer

No, the system does not have any RAM, Operating System, or a HDD. Those items will need to be bought separately and installed by you before use.

Additionally to connect to a monitor you will need either an HDMI cable, or a mini display port to VGA (or DVI) adapter and respective cable to connect to the monitor.

Questions & Answers