Chillblast Fusion Brix review

This gives it plenty of speed to cope with everyday computing tasks, and its integrated Intel HD Graphics 4400 chip can even play some 3D games. In the laptop version of our Dirt Showdown test, which we run at 1,280×720 with High detail and 4x anti-aliasing, it produced a steady 19.8fps, which is what we’d expect to see from this type of chip. Disabling the anti-aliasing will raise this frame rate further, as we found when we tried out the less demanding platform game Trine 2. In this title we saw a silky smooth 37.4fps on High quality with no anti-aliasing at 1,280×720, but this increased to an even smoother 46.2fps when we set the quality to Low.

We even managed to play games at 1,920×1,080; the native resolution of the majority of monitors available today. We had to set the quality to Low and disable anti-aliasing to get anything remotely playable, but we still managed a just-about-smooth 29.1fps in Dirt Showdown at this resolution. The Fusion Brix can handle 4K video playback, too.

Sadly, the Fusion Brix’s limited BIOS doesn’t provide any options for waking the PC from LAN. This makes it less suitable for mounting to the back of your TV or monitor, as you’ll have to reach round to find the power button every time you want to use it, rather than using a Wake on LAN app on your smartphone or tablet. This is a shame given the PC’s petite size and included Vesa mount, and makes it less suitable for use as a media centre PC than other mini PCs.

Our chief concern with the Fusion Brix is its price. At £585, it’s considerably more expensive than other Core i3 mini PCs such as the PC Specialist NUC Lite or Lenovo IdeaCentre Q190. The more powerful Zotac ZBox Nano ID64 Plus is also nearly £100 cheaper even after you’ve added in the extra cost of buying an operating system, and the more powerful Scan 3XS NUC N16 is only £15 more, leaving the Brix looking a little overpriced.