Home Reviews ,,,,, For some time now, the Alfawise brand has always been at the fore when it comes to technology. It almost seems that the company wants to follow in Xiaomi's footsteps. Not only smart sockets, smart watches, vacuum cleaners, electric toothbrushes and so on and so forth, now also gaming PCs. We tested Alfawise B1, the mini barebones with Nvidia GTX960M graphics card: versatile and potentially cheap, but it's all up to you.
How it's done
Alfawise B1 is a barebones dedicated to games, with dimensions that certainly represent one of the strengths of the product, with its 15 x 19.50 x 5.00 cm, and a weight of just 1 Kg.
Powerful and versatile, therefore, the Alfawise B1 mini PC, although dedicated to gaming, turns out to be a platform that can be adapted for different uses: from the office, to the media center, to be placed in the living room, in the TV cabinet, also thanks to the its small size. The case is made entirely of aluminum, with a modern and compact design, similar to that of a game console.
Technical features
This mini PC equipped with an Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor, quad-core based on the Skylake architecture, clocked at 2.6 GHz and up to 3.5 GHz, with an HD Graphics 530 GPU. dual memory controllers DDR4-2133 / DDR3L-1600 available.
Attention, however, the RAM is not included, just as no internal memory is included which, at the user's choice, can support a 2.5-inch HDD up to 1TB, (with specifications 6.0Gbps 7.0 / 9.5 mm thick) o an SSD, in Dual M.2 22 × 80 formats, one with PCIEx4 and SATA3.0 support; the other with SATA 3.0 support.
It is therefore a product that, “out of the box” is not ready for use. The user will have to choose SSD / HDD and RAM to install, just as it will be the user's responsibility to install an operating system, thus purchasing it separately, as long as you do not already have a license, or choose a system that does not need any key. .
As already mentioned, inside a sixth generation i7 6700HQ Intel Core processor, quad core, based on Skylake architecture, with a frequency of 2.6-3.5GHz. It is possible to install up to 32 GB of RAM, thanks to the dual channel DDR4-2133 / DDR3L-1600, which allows you to mount two 16GB DDR4 slots.
Of course, the highlight of the whole product, the one that probably raises the price more than the other components, is the video card: on the one hand there is an integrated Intel HD Graphics 530 GPU, alongside a powerful Nvidia GeForce GTX 960m graphics card, with DirectX-11 support.
The 960m GTX card is based on Nvidia Maxwell architecture, built in 28nm manufacturing process, with 640 shader units clocked at 1097 – 1202 MHz and 4GB of GDDR5 memory (128 bit, 5000 MHz effective, 80 GB / s).
Case opening
Don't be afraid that Alfawise B1 is not ready to use, and that it needs components to assemble. And in fact, opening the case is absolutely simple, immediate and fast. It does not require special tools, other than the screwdriver included in the package, and does not require special technical skills.
By removing the 3 front screws, and the two rear ones, you will have immediate access to its interior, where it will be easy to install RAM and integrated memory. Of course, the choice of components to purchase will be up to the user.
SSD and cheap RAM
We decided to mount cheap SSDs and RAM for our test. The cheapest available on Amazon. With an additional cost of 50 euros, compared to the price of the B1, you will have a complete PC (which will, of course, lack the monitor, keyboards and mice, any speakers, and license if you choose Windows).
For the RAM we have chosen a bank of 4GB Crucial DDR4 (we recommend to put at least 8, even if 4 GB is enough for office use). For the integrated memory, however, we chose the 120 GB WD SSD, really the cheapest on Amazon.
With this configuration we managed to have a good machine, very fluid in running Windows 10, and excellent for office or media center use. it would be useless to talk about how you run this or that application, because a lot will depend on the user's choices of the two missing components.
However, the base that the B1 offers is very powerful, and the advice is to spend a little more to buy well-made RAM and SSD. In any case, even the cheapest reported ones allow a fluid use of the PC, with practically immediate boot, and without any slowdown, not even in the management of 4K content.
Connectivity
From the point of view of connectivity, the Alfawise B1 is equipped with WiFi module 802.11 a / b / g / n / AC, dual-band 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz, dual wireless antenna, Bluetooth 4.2 and network card 100M / 1000M. At the level of inputs it offers 4 USB 3.0 ports and 2 USB 2.0 ports, has an HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2 with 4K video support at 24 Hz.
Conclusions
If you are looking for an affordable gaming PC with a console-like design, the extremely portable Alfawise B1 Mini PC may satisfy you. Remember that the Alfawise B1 is a Barebone mini PC, so you need to use additional components (RAM and SSD) for its operation.
The operating system must also be installed. The opening of the case is really easy, it is an operation that can be performed by anyone, even by the less experienced.
It costs 429 euros, currently in flash offer, and can be purchased directly from here .
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