Gigabyte AMD A8-5557M CPU Radeon HD 8550G Mini PC Barebone Components GB-BXA8-5557

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO CAN'T INSTALL WINDOWS 7 BECAUSE USB 3.0 CAN'T RECOGNIZE YOUR MOUSE OR MOTHERBOARD.Hi, since this kit is all USB 3.0 and due to limitations from Win7, your mouse or Keyboard won't be recognized using any of the USB 3.0 ports after windows 7 starts. To solve that all you need to do is turn off the USB 3.0 controller temporarily so it'll act like a USB 2.0 port until you're done with your work. How to do that, simply do the following:- Plug your keyboard in any of the USB ports. (and your mouse)- Turn ON your PC.- Keep pressing F12 button (it'll take you to the BIOS menu).- A mini menu will appear, select "setup", press "enter" .. now you're in the BIOS menu.- Use the cursor buttons and select the "Chipset" tap, select "USB 3.0 controller" , Disable it then Save & Exit (Or Save Changes and Reset).- Now your PC is ready to recognize your mouse and keyboard when Win 7 starts, as all ports now work as USB 2.0 ports.- Once you're done don't forget to Enable the USB 3.0 controller the same way you disabled it.I hope this was helpful, I came through this problem and couldn't find a solution in the internet until I figured it out. Please if you find this helpful click on Yes so others can know about it. Thanks.

This is actually a Brix Gaming with a dedicated Radeon M275X GPU. However, the cooling system is inefficiently designed and incapable of cooling the 100W+ that the CPU+GPU could put out, so Gigabyte disabled the GPU and is dumping the remaining units on Amazon. Even with the GPU disabled, the CPU gets insufficient cooling (because its heatsink is tiny and the axial fans are far too loud when producing the necessary pressure to blow through it). The CPU's Turbo Boost is also disabled, so this CPU performs 33% worse than usual. Other mini-PCs are quieter not just because they're Intel, but because they have room to fit more efficient blower-type fans.I am working on trying to enable the GPU. If that is possible, this unit would become more interesting. Otherwise, stay away unless you're looking for a bargain-basement price on something slightly faster than an Atom/Celeron NUC and can't find a different AMD machine.Cons: - Badly designed cooling system that is non-silent at low load and can be very loud at high. (And this is without any dust build-up.) - CPU throttled to 2.1 GHz, and performs slower than benchmarks indicate.Pros: - Faster than an Atom - Cheap

I really like this mini PC setup and I have it mounted behind a 21" LCD monitor using the included VESA mounting bracket. I configured mine with 16GB memory (overkill I know), a mSATA Crucial MX200 250GB flash drive (boot drive) and a spare 1TB HGST 2.5" SATA HDD (data drive). This AMD CPU & MB setup is plenty powerful for running Win10 in a "normal user" use case. I don't game so don't know how it does with that scenario. Rarely do I ever hear the fans spin up to full RPM but you do know it when they do... The only time I hear them is when I'm ripping / re-encoding video files to another format (ex. running Handbrake, etc.) which is a CPU/storage intensive activity which kicks the fans in for needed cooling. Also, being a Ducati motorcycle guy.... I love the red & black color scheme this unit comes in!!! Throw a few Ducati stickers on it and it's instantly 30% faster!!! ;-)

Bought one of these for my parents, they need all the computing power they can get to run solitaire and checking their email...Joking aside, after equipping this mini computer with 8 GB of RAM and an SSD, it wakes up from sleep mode immediately and works silently which is exactly what they need from a computer.From reviews I read online, this computer can get noisy if you try to run demanding tasks on it (for example gaming), but as mentioned above, the most challenging task my computer had to run was the installation of Windows 10 on it.What I liked most about this mini computer is that for the price of an Intel Celeron NUC you get almost an equivalent of an i5 NUC in terms of processing power, so it's a real bargain IMO.

Speed and function is fine. The real issue is the noise. I even replaced the fans, which helped, but was not enough. This little devil pumps out way too much heat and sound, making it not a practical media center or portable gaming device. It over heated just running League of Legends on low settings at 1080p (With stock fans). I don't recommend replacing the stock fans unless you are savvy with small electronics. I had no real OS issues. Used windows 10 upgrade from windows 7. Installed Windows 7 Home Premium from a flash drive. Had to fiddle with the bios a little but that was easy. Over all I would not recommend this. There are better options at the same price range for portable gaming, media centers, and monitor mountable PCs.

Not bad and an easy build. I got a smaller SSD and 12 GB of RAM and it runs fast and well. To bad I chose to put in Windows 10 though. That spoiled the party. And the fan is loud, but the red plastic stying is bitchin.

On the whole this is an extremely good computer. It does far better than expected with 3D games, and it is quick. My only complaint is the fans are very noisy. I think I will be adding extra vents for the CPU/GPU, but for the price this is a really good deal.

This computer was dead on arrival. For that I can offer no more than a one-star review.The support page is atrocious. I try to set up an account and sign on with it, the site tells me my my logon is invalid. I try to set up again, and tells me my email already exists. The site is difficult to navigate the text is a joke. Gigabyte, you should be ashamed of yourselves presenting such poorly translated English.But what soured the experience for me was the fact that the support line is dead ... "network difficulties" the canned message said.As far as the computer itself, the hard drive tray arrived with only 2 screws, not 4 like the pictograph in the directions indicate. It also indicated using another 4 provided screws to attach the hard drive to the tray. Also not included.Thankful that Amazon accepted my return, no hassle from them.