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Testing Thread: Gigabyte BRIX Mini PC kit - Core i3 Mobile

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tonymacx86

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Motherboard
Z370N WIFI
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I got the Gigabyte BRIX Core i3 Mini pc kit for testing.​

GIGABYTE BRIX GB-XM12-3227 - Amazon Newegg
Included:
-Intel Core i3-3227U 1.9GHz w/ HD 4000 Graphics (Ivy Bridge)
-Intel HM77 Motherboard (7-series)
-Mini PCIe WIFI
-Power Adapter
Not included:
-8GB Corsair Vengeance SO-DIMM RAM - Amazon Newegg
-30GB OCZ Nocti mSATA SSD - Amazon Newegg

Pretty much took the SO-DIMM and mSATA out of the B75TN Thin Mini-ITX Build, and booted it up- even with the B75TN DSDT. Results: Everything but wifi works. Full HDMI Audio, LAN, DP, USB3. Mini PCIe Wifi b/g/n built in does not work. It's Realtek RTL8188CE. There are some OS X drivers available for similar Realtek wifi, but not for native airport (link). Will need to get a working mini pcie.

Power Management also not native- it's not got the default Gigabyte UEFI- so patched AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext from MultiBeast works to enable sleep/wake. Can also patch BIOS instead.

File Dumps: View attachment BRIX.zip

Edited DSDT with HDMI Audio: View attachment DSDT.aml.zip

Photos: http://www.tonymacx86.com/members/tonymacx86/albums/gigabyte-brix/

10.9 Mavericks (edit)
Screen Shot 2013-10-25 at 6.14.09 AM.pngScreen Shot 2013-10-25 at 6.14.20 AM.pngScreen Shot 2013-10-25 at 6.14.30 AM.pngScreen Shot 2013-10-25 at 6.18.33 AM.png
 
Just got one of these myself today, I haven't had much time to test but my first impressions were that it seemed quite a bit faster than the NUC
 
View attachment 60458 View attachment 60457
I got the Gigabyte BRIX Core i3 Mini pc kit for testing.​

GIGABYTE BRIX GB-XM12-3227 - Amazon Newegg
Included:
-Intel Core i3-3227U 1.9GHz w/ HD 4000 Graphics (Ivy Bridge)
-Intel HM77 Motherboard (7-series)
-Mini PCIe WIFI
-Power Adapter
Not included:
-8GB Corsair Vengeance SO-DIMM RAM - Amazon Newegg
-30GB OCZ Nocti mSATA SSD - Amazon Newegg

Pretty much took the SO-DIMM and mSATA out of the B75TN Thin Mini-ITX Build, and booted it up- even with the B75TN DSDT. Results: Everything but wifi works. Full HDMI Audio, LAN, DP, USB3. Mini PCIe Wifi b/g/n built in does not work. It's Realtek RTL8188CE. There are some OS X drivers available for similar Realtek wifi, but not for native airport (link). Will need to get a working mini pcie.

Power Management also not native- it's not got the default Gigabyte UEFI- so patched AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext from MultiBeast works to enable sleep/wake. Can also patch BIOS instead.

File Dumps: View attachment 60474

Edited DSDT with HDMI Audio: View attachment 60520

Photos: http://www.tonymacx86.com/members/tonymacx86/albums/gigabyte-brix/

Tony, would you kindly explain your choice with i3 vs. the other 2 CPUs? This looks like a awesome little buy. :)
 
HI Tony

This is really good, Thank you for the post.

I have an idea, I don't know if it have been done already.
The idea is for a chart/table which will contain a database of all the current successful and officially working custom mac builds.
So that we can have a single place to compare the builds and actually put a meaning to the benchmark scores.

Here are a few key point that I think the table should hold.
- The Table should contain all the builds.
- The Hardware for each build could be accessible by hovering the cursor above the build, doing so, should reveal a bubble containing all the Build Specifications
- The benchmarks should be listed for each build and comparison should be fairly straight forward to be done by the user.
- The table should should contain sorting options (by name, by score, OS, etc.)

As I said I don't know if a chart containing this information already exist, but if not, I believe that it will be very useful to have. Hope you like the idea and thank you again for creating this amazing community.
 

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Power Management also not native- it's not got the default Gigabyte UEFI- so patched AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext from MultiBeast works to enable sleep/wake. Can also patch BIOS instead.

File Dumps: View attachment 60474

Edited DSDT with HDMI Audio: View attachment 60520

Tony, if I buy i7 model Brix, I just use Multibeast + your Edited DSDT with HDMI Audio
it should be good to make everything working (I will replace Wifi card), is that correct?
 
The advantage I see with going with an Intel NUC board is the ability to add your own mini pci-e card for a wireless card. You could buy an apple standard 802.11g or n wifi card and drop put it on the board with an ssd, and your'e set. No need to worry about Realtek drivers.
 
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