At first we would like to thank Giada for sending us a sample of their D2308U Mini-PC for testing and reviewing.

 

 

About Giada:

 

“Giada Technology is the leading cloud computing and system solution provider. The brand name “Giada” is derived from the Italian meaning “Jade”, which symbolizes the quality and style of each and every product that Giada produces in its state of the art manufacturing facility. With a strong R & D division and product knowledge, Giada has established itself as a leading manufacturer in performance, creativity and design.

 

“Enrich and improve today’s life style of living and become one of the world’s leading brands in the technology business. We aim to deliver on our promise based on the advantages of our exceptional innovation, quality and style.” says KJ Lin, Giada’s CEO.

 

The new Giada’s Mini PC will focus on the consumer’s computing needs and versatility in today’s modern world. The high-performance, quiet and eco-friendly system is excellent for business and commercial applications (digital signage, healthcare industry, office, and school systems).In addition, Giada’s Mini PC is an idea space-saver for home entertainment systems (blue-ray 2.0 and 1080p) and at home offices. Giada has produced an assortment of product lines, including a slim system that provides the best solution for a variety of applications for customers and industries. The creation of a mini pc that weighs approximately five pounds has revolutionized the computer industry standards.

 

Giadas’ other attributes includes numerous recognitions and awards for its continuing commitment and support to meet the highest consumer and environmental standards in the industry. Giada complies with ISO9001/14000 specifications and meets ROHS CE, FCC and UL certifications. Giada leads the industry with key technology for products that excel in terms of intelligent thermal management, graphics performance, materials and environmental protection.

 

The name “Giada” will mean a commitment to quality, value, fashion, simplicity & high performance. Based on years of experience, GIADA looks forward in becoming one of the fastest growing and leading brands in the world.”

 

Product Features:

 

4th Generation Intel®Core™ i7 Processors

Amazing performance and stunning visuals at their best. Get top-of-the-line performance for your most demanding tasks with it.

 

NVIDIA®GeForce® GTX750

On board discrete GPU supports GPU Boost 2.0, 3D Vision, CUDA, DirectX 11, PhysX, TXAA, Adaptive VSync, FXAA, NVIDIA Surround, G-SYNC-ready.

 

Ultra HD

Pack around four times as many pixels into screens as existing HD sets, producing a sharper, higher-density picture.

 

Microsoft®DirectX®11.2

Provides incredibly smooth and life-like graphics, including 3D. A must have for games and video enthusiasts.

 

HDMI 1.4b Output

High-definition video output (720p, 1080p, and 2160p)and multi-channel digital audio.

 

Gigabit LAN

High-speed LAN connection with 1Gb/s data transfer rate. Ideal for seamless internet connection for audio and video streaming.

 

Wi-Fi + Bluetooth®

Wireless solution (IEEE 802.11b/g/n) to optimize your internet experience with speed and longer distance coverage. Bluetooth®to enable exchanging data over short distances.

 

USB3.0

Maximum transmission speed of up to 5Gb/s (10X faster than USB2.0), ideal for connecting to external hard drives.

 

TPM (Trusted Platform Module )

Onboard TPM offers enhanced platform security through top level encryption; mandated by many IT departments.

 

VESA Mount?Optional?

Save more space by mounting the Mini PC behind your LCD or TV designed to fit seamlessly into any environment any lifestyle.

 

Energy Saving

Low power consumption saves money and better for the environment

 

Product Specifications:

 

In this article we will take a look at a very interesting product from Giada and to be more exact, one quite powerful Mini PC. The sample did not arrive in a full retail packaging, but the manufacturer ensured us that the retail products are shipped in a proper manner. First, we will take a look at the accessory box, which presents itself with a quite simple design:

 

 

 

 

What will we find inside? Well, we have the power lead, one power brick, the wireless antenna, two HDMI cables and one installation disk:

 

 

 

The power supply was manufactured by Enertronix and is rated on the output as 19V, 4.74A:

 

 

 

The small PC was carefully packed in a foam pouch in order to avoid scratches during transport:

 

 

 

While the chassis is pretty compact and sturdy, the construction adds a little weight, which is not necessary a bad thing; on the top the manufacturer has included a chromed Giada logo:

 

 

 

The laterals of the chassis are curved for a sleek design:

 

 

 

In the front we have the Power button with a green LED, the HDD activity LED but also the IR blaster; the left portion includes a small plastic door, which covers additional interfaces:

 

 

 

Speaking of the plastic door, this one keeps hidden the headphone and microphone jack, one USB 3.0 port but also one card reader:

 

 

 

The back side of the unit retains a similar shape, but has many more ports available; let’s get into details:

 

 

 

On the left we have the Wi-Fi antenna port (gold plated), along with the internal fan exhaust, one Kensington lock port, but also one DVI:

 

 

 

Moving to the right, we have two HDMIs, one LAN, two USB 2.0 and also two USB 3.0 ports, but also the SPDIF and DC-IN ports:

 

 

 

On the bottom side of the unit we have some extra ventilation grills and four rubber feet; in order to “spy” on the internal components, we must first remove the four feet and afterwards work on the screws located on the back plastic cover. The frontal cover and back cover must then come off in order to remove the middle chassis part out of the machined aluminum cover:

 

 

 

With the cover removed, this is what we get; on the top side we have the 2.5’’ HDD which is secured with additional screws and the heatpipe cooling system along with the blower fan:

 

 

 

Some more screws must be removed in order to have full access to the motherboard; on the back side of the unit we have more components clearly visible like the memory modules, the WiFi card and so on:

 

 

 

Samsung K4G41325FC memory chips can be found near the fan cut-out which sums a total of 2GB GDDR5 for the GTX 750 video card:

 

 

 

In the vicinity we will be able to spot one free mini PCIe slot:

 

 

 

The Qualcomm Atheros combo card takes care of both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi interfaces and uses two antennas:

 

 

 

The VRM components can be found in different areas of the board:

 

 

 

 

 

A capsulated CR2032 Newsun battery keeps the CMOS settings loaded when power is off:

 

 

 

The blower fan was made by ADDA and the model is AB6505HB-E03:

 

 

 

The heatsink has a similar construction as we have seen with many laptops:

 

 

 

The Realtek RTL8111 Gigabit Ethernet controller takes care of the LAN interface on this motherboard:

 

 

 

The memory slots are populated with two 4GB DDR3L 1600MHz modules from Crucial:

 

 

 

Let’s get back again to the frontal side of the PCB, where we will get to see the rest of the Samsung memory chips, the two-pipe copper cooling system and the pre-installed HGST 1TB 5400RPM HDD:

 

 

 

On a closer inspection we will be able to spot the ALC662 audio CODEC from Realtek:

 

 

 

Some unused ports are available on the left side of the drive:

 

-DC-IN header

-SATA port

-COM header

 

 

 

Near the CMOS battery connector we have one more controller from Realtek, the RTS5159 which takes care of the card reader:

 

 

 

The heatpipe system cools both CPU and GPU so in some cases the heat might be transferred from one to the other; the pipes travel to the front of the blower fan, which does a great job keeping both at acceptable temperatures while stressed:

 

 

 

 

Giada did not go with a fully-fledged UEFI interface, but has opted for the classic Aptio Setup Utility. The Main menu section shows us the BIOS ID, build date, total installed memory, memory frequency and at the same time we can adjust the system date and time:

 

 

 

The Advanced menu is split into multiple sub-sections: Trusted Computing, CPU Configuration, SATA Configuration, Intel Rapid Start Technology, HW Monitor and Power Configuration:

 

 

 

The Trusted Computing menu allows us to enable or disable the interface:

 

 

 

CPU Configuration section shows an extensive list of CPU features and from here we will be able to adjust many other settings like Hyper-Threading, total number of Active Processor Cores, XD bit, Intel VT and more:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The SATA Configuration menu also has plenty of unlocked options which we haven’t even found on high-end motherboards:

 

 

 

In there we also have the Software Feature Mask Configuration menu, with the following options:

 

 

 

The Intel Rapid Start menu is pretty self-explanatory:

 

 

 

HW Monitor menu contains live monitoring details regarding the CPU and System temperatures, but also the fan speed; here we can also adjust the Smart Fan Function:

 

 

 

 

The Power Configuration menu contains options regarding system wake-up and ME control:

 

 

 

The Chipset menu comes with the Restore AC Power Loss and Launch PXE OpROM Policy options:

 

 

 

The Boot menu is quite simple and besides the priority of the boot devices, we can also set some miscellaneous options:

 

 

 

Next we have the usual Security menu with the Admin and User password setup:

 

 

 

The Save & Exit menu allows saving, discarding or loading factory settings; we also have a slot available to save our favorite settings as “user defaults”:

 

 

 

Unlike many systems we have reviewed in the past, the Giada D2308U comes equipped with everything hardware-wise needed in order to start the operating system installation. By using the usual software, we have found even more details regarding the internal components:

 

CPU-Z CPU Information Tab

 

 

CPU-Z CPU Caches Tab

 

 

CPU-Z Mainboard Tab

 

 

CPU-Z Memory Tab

 

 

GPU-Z Graphics Card Info

 

 

AIDA64 gives us even some more details regarding the computer components:

 

CPU Information

 

 

Motherboard Information

 

 

 

 

IMC

 

 

 

 

Intel Lynx Point Chipset

 

More in-depth information regarding the fully-fledged GeForce GTX 750 can be explored with the help of AIDA64:

 

 

Temperature tests

 

To test the computer thermals, we have first left the computer in IDLE for about 30 minutes and then we fired up 3DMark2003 in loop mode, for an additional 50 minutes. The minimum and maximum temperatures of all internal components were recorded by the latest HWINFO utility. During the time of testing, the ambient temperature was 24.7 degrees Celsius:

 

 

Power consumption test results

System Full Load measurement was recorded while running the AIDA64 System Stability Test and checking on Stress CPU, Stress FPU, Stress Cache, Stress System Memory, Stress GPUs.

In IDLE, we have recorded a value of 27.12W, while in Full Load about 81.84W.

3DMark 2001

 

3DMark 2003

 

3DMark 2005

 

3DMark 2006

 

PCMark 2005

 

PCMark Vantage

 

PCMark 7

CrystalMark

 

SuperPI 1.5 XS 1M

 

wPrime 32M

 

CineBench R10

 

CineBench R11.5

 

 

x264 Encoding

 

Counterstrike Source

 

 

Since the overall results were so good, especially in the 3D department, we have conducted even more extra tests:

 

The Giada D2308U Mini PC really impressed us in terms of performance compared to similar-sized hardware we have taken a look upon past years and we could easily use it as a very portable Steam Box. Even if the processor is a dual-core instead of quad, it has pretty high turbo frequencies (3GHz), is paired with 8GB of DDR3L SODIMM RAM and of course, the most important “gaming” component of the whole system, a fully-fledged Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 “Maxwell” GPU, which functions at the default frequencies of a dedicated card. 2GB of video memory is available separately and as video outputs we have one DVI and also two HDMIs.

 

The pre-installed storage drive is a HGST 1TB 5400RPM, not known as a high-performance demon, but this one can be easily replaced by a 7200RPM drive, a high-capacity SSD or if performance is not a factor of decision, we can purchase a 2TB drive for storing more games and applications. A mSATA 6Gbps port is available on the back side of the PCB for fitting extra storage; we are also have available no less than three USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 and one card reader. The audio jacks are located in the front, while the SPDIF is placed in the back side of the unit and for network access we have a RJ45 port and built-in Wi-Fi + Bluetooth capabilities thanks to the combo card.

 

The only negative part about this setup is the MSRP price, which still sits at $1100USD at the time of the review.

 

Giada D2308U Mini-PC is Recommended For:

 

 

We would like to thank again to Giada for making this review possible!