Brix on BRIX – Colin talks to Newegg about the latest in our BRIX series

Our man Colin was in the US recently and took time to visit Newegg, specifically to chat about our new line of BRIX compact PC kits. In case you missed it, the GIGABYTE BRIX is an ultra compact kit that provides you with a small, and I mean literally ‘in the palm of your hand’ small, chassis containing a custom motherboard with a choice of 4th gen Intel Core CPUs. We provide a WiFi/Bluetooth Mini-PCIe module too so all you need to add is some SO-DIMM DRR3 modules, and mSATA SSD for your OS and bingo, you have a very small, very cool looking PC that actually has plenty of performance punch.

Watch the video to see the complete BRIX package, plus a few of the new models we’re adding to the series.

GIGABYTE BRIX: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/list.aspx?s=47&ck=104

Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=brix&N=-1&isNodeId=1

HWBOT Country Cup looking to be the most popular OC contest ever organised, how is your country fairing?

HWBOT is in its 5th edition of the famous Country Cup competition where overclockers from nations worldwide compete to give their country the best chance of walking away with the highest honours. HWBOT is saying they are expecting submission numbers to surpass the most popular Country Cup 2011 competition considerably this year.

Being an Australian I can tell you we love our sports and do pretty well against the big guns despite being a relatively small nation (size of population). Overclocking is just like any other “sport”, it has its stats and ranking systems that immediately give you an idea how well (or badly) you stack up against others.

How about you jump over to the competition first and check it out. Here is the web page you need to go to.

Countdown timer gives you an indication how long a time there is left. Currently we’re looking just over a month to go. The leaderboard is tightly stacked and some of the countries are there that always do well and then there are a few surprises. Australia is one of those countries that has not faired too well in the past finishing well down the ladder in 30+ spots. Well, this year things are different. Boys from OCAU HWBOT team and Team Australia Extreme OC team are joining forces and looking for a strong finish.

Americans have also not been as active in this comp in the past but this year they are looking very strong. The usual suspects of Germany and Indonesia are in top 5. We are yet to see some of the previous champions including Romanian, Greek and Polish teams step up their game. I have no doubt the leaderboard will take many twists and turns yet, best to keep an eye on the latest submissions and team movements daily. I love checking out people’s OC rig setup pics that are compulsory in result submissions. I’ll put up a couple of cool shots here!

GIGABYTE is the proud sponsor of Country Cup competition and is offering some nice prizes for the winners as are other companies including G.Skill, Intel and Cooler Master.

Thumbs up to all and have fun.

GIGABYTE ‘Feel the Force’ Star Wars Quote Contest - Quote and Winner Revealed

Earlier this week we asked all our Facebook fans and followers to try and guess which quote from the original Star Wars movie we had hidden in an envelope… a big thanks to the hundreds of you that took part, but before we announce the winner, let’s open said envelope and reveal the quote:

Winning Quote: Han Solo - “It’s the ship that made the kessel run in less than twelve parsecs”

As I mentioned in the comments on Facebook, it is kind of (hmm…very loosely) related to overclocking and benchmarking… if you consider the kessel run to be benchmark of course. According to Wookieepedia:

“The Kessel Run was one of the most heavily used smuggling routes in the Galactic Empire. Han Solo claimed that his Millennium Falcon "made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs". A parsec is a unit of distance, not time. Solo was not referring directly to his ship's speed when he made this claim. Instead, he was referring to the shorter route he was able to travel by skirting the nearby Maw black hole cluster, thus making the run in under the standard distance. By moving closer to the black holes, Solo managed to cut the distance down to about 11.5 parsecs. The smuggler BoShek actually beat Solo's record in his ship, Infinity, but without cargo to weigh him down. A few months later, Han Solo beat both his own and BoShek's records in a run he made with Luke Skywalker.”

Three people correctly guessed the quote:

1. Luie Arellano
2. Jesse Que
3. Sergio Nergal

Well done guys. Each person was designated a number from one to three (same as above), and using a random number generator at random.org, the number 2 was chosen. Congratulations to Jessie Que in Australia who will shortly be the proud owner of a GIGABYTE Z87X-OC motherboard - a Millennium Falcon in motherboard form you might say… ;)

Thanks once again folks for all who took part…

Check out the ‘Feel the Force’ Overclocking contest at HWBOT.org

Learn more about the GIGABYTE Z87X-OC motherboard here.