There are plenty of gaming PCs designed to replace consoles, but that normally means accepting something underpowered like the Ouya if you’re short on space. But this little guy, called the Gigabyte Brix II, is both powerful and petite.
Its cute little 4.5-inch square frame — which is smaller than an Xbox controller — is actually hiding a bare-bones PC. So, you get HDMI and Mini DisplayPort output, four USB 3.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, built in Wi-Fi, 3.5mm audio jack in the front, and — excitingly — a Haswell processor of your choosing.
In fact, some of the chips you can select come with Intel’s new Iris Pro graphics: integrated graphics which, the company claims, are on par with Nvidia’s GeForce GT 650M discrete graphics chip. That mean these little boxes have some heft.
They cost in the region of $US500-$US600, but you’ll need to supply your own memory, 2.5-inch hard drive, and operating system before you can start playing. There’s also a line-up of lower-powered, fanless boxes available, starting at $US200. [The Verge]
Picture: The Verge