Gigabyte BRIX i7-4500 Barebones Mini-PC Review (w/ G.Skill Ripjaws 1600MHz 16GB)

To test the Gigabyte BRIX system's wireless speed, we used Totusoft’s LAN Speed Test software to measure the real-world network throughput when transferring a 100MB file from a wired ‘server’ computer. LAN Speed Test provides real-world performance results as it creates the file, measures the time taken to transfer it, and calculates the effective network throughput.

The BRIX system was located in close proximity to our Tenda N60 router. We used the 2.4GHz frequency band (only frequency supported by the BRIX's adapter) and kept network resources free to ensure the transfer rates were not capped. The ‘client' system was connected to the network via Gigabit Ethernet.

Utilising a mini-PCI-E adapter which provides support for single-stream (150Mb/s) wireless-N, Gigabyte's BRIX was able to reach around 70Mb/s when streaming files over WiFi. Given that our test router is capable of more than 100Mb/s, it is fair to say that Gigabyte's choice of adapter tops out at around 70Mb/s when used on our test network.

70Mb/s over WiFi is a respectable speed, but given the BRIX's possible reliance upon network-based storage, a faster adapter would have most certainly been welcomed. Provided the connection is able to maintain stability on your network, wireless streaming of HD content should be a possibility with the BRIX.

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