[ViZZY]

Hi all! :]

I've been using an old Acer Aspire M3400 desktop for my XBMC rig for sometime now ever since my laptop died last year. Well, despite the Acer being free and running decently, it's far from quiet, it is very bulky and isn't HDCP compliant so it has led me to research various small form factor computers. I thought about the Acer Revo, Zotac Zbox, Intel NUC and even the somewhat daunting HD-Plex line of fanless cases. With my current budget of around $400, the Brix line from Gigabyte seems like the best fit, especially since the RAM, SSD and Brix itself would be just under that after tax and shipping!

These are the components I picked out, if anyone has any caveats or personal experiences to share please do:

Gigabyte GB-BXA8-5545 - $259.99 + $7.56 S&H = $267.55

Crucial SSD - $79.99 + 5.6% tax + Crucial Ram - $41.79 + 5.6% tax = $128.60

$396.15 total

In an effort to ween myself off closed-source operating systems as well as keep costs down, I'd like to run some form of Linux on this potential future XBMC box, be it XBMCbuntu, OpenELEC or another, just preferably one suitable for beginners as I've been dependent on Windows for far too long. I am also flexible and willing to consider Intel to play more friendly with Linux, but my last experience with an Intel/Nvidia box for XBMC left a lot to be desired, especially in regard to video playback quality, whereas the few AMD based XBMC solutions I've built over the years have all performed top notch in the same categories. That said I like to remain open-minded and not too brand loyal.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far and any assistance is greatly appreciated! :]

[cosmic23]

Hi Vizzy

I'm interested to know if you went ahead with this planned build? After finding the GB-BXA8-5545 while looking to build a new HTPC, I found this post. Did you go ahead with the build? If so are you happy with the components you chose? What OS did you choose and what is the performance like?

Appreciate any feedback you can give as I've not seen much other feedback on that Brix model.

[ViZZY]

Thanks for the inquiry cosmic23, as of yet I've put my plan on hold as I too have had much trouble finding any real concrete reviews or details and found the lack of any replies to this post after so many views to be a bit disconcerting. I am still undecided if I'd rather build the ATI based Brix/Intel based NUC and a separate "everything else" NUC/Brix/Revo type pc, a single and powerful dual purpose (and likely loud) hptc or wait for the Asus Chromebox to come out and see how it fairs as a potential fanless XBMC box as well as the promising, but potentially underpowered, CuBox.

As of the moment I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with the volatility of the industry as well as with Gotham being around the corner so I shall continue biding my time with the old Acer for a bit longer (though it did have a really gnarly GREEN screen of death the other night!) and wait to hear how the CuBox and Chromebox turn out. A silent, low power budget htpc just powerful enough for XBMC currently with a little wiggle room for the future is pretty much exactly what I'm (and I'm sure many others are) looking for, and though this Brix build would likely work great but arguably be overkill even for the future, if I can buy something for half or even a fraction of the cost and yield a similar experience within XBMC without making too many sacrifices, I'm all for it! :]