[MrCrispy]

They are both priced around the same one you add cheap ram/storage to NUC. They both run OpenElec. NUC has built in IR, but Chromebox has a real Haswell Celeron vs older Atom, and thus a better gpu which should make it more capable? Power consumption is slightly lower on the DN2820 but not significantly so.

Is there a clear winner between these two?

[jammyb]

NUC 2820 is Bay Trail Celeron not Atom.

NUC has IR and no android bloatware.

[xbs08]

Bay Trail Celeron is the "new" Atom.

Chromebox doesn't come with android.

[MrCrispy]

I'm not sure I'd call ChromeOS 'bloatware'. If dual boot is easy then some might find it rather useful, of course you can always dual boot or run Widnows on NUC as well.

[jammyb]

Bay Trail Celeron is the "new" Atom.

Chromebox doesn't come with android.

Intel don't call it "Atom" they're phasing out the name. It's Celeron.

Ok, ChromeOS. It's Android. No need for semantics!

I'm not sure I'd call ChromeOS 'bloatware'. If dual boot is easy then some might find it rather useful, of course you can always dual boot or run Widnows on NUC as well.

It's bloatware and dual boot isn't easy but is doable to dual boot something like openELEC. NUC is a PC. So can dual boot easily.

There is a thread about dual boot on chrome box

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=194362

And on the 15th post is a spec comparison of chromebox and NUC

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=185329

[xbs08]

If ChromeOS is the same as Android to you then I'm sorry for you.

They changed the name (TO CELERON) but it's pretty much the same (ATOM).

[noggin]

Bay Trail Celeron is the "new" Atom.

Chromebox doesn't come with android.

Intel don't call it "Atom" they're phasing out the name. It's Celeron.

They're phasing out the Atom name at this level - but it just means there are two totally different Celeron platforms now. The Bay Trail N2820/2830s - which are based on an Atom-derived architecture, and the significantly more powerful (in both CPU and GPU terms) Haswell series like the 2955U.

Though both are now marketed as Celerons, the Bay Trail is very much "Atom" in inheritance, whilst the 2955U (used in the Chromebox) is very much a Haswell chip (with the benefits of that)

If I had to chose I'd definitely go for the 2955U. The GPU will allow for better quality scaling and the CPU will allow for YADIF 2x de-interlacing of 1080i. The Bay Trail is stuck with lower quality scaling (because it has a lower power GPU) and Bob de-interlacing of 1080i (because the CPU isn't powerful enough)

[jammyb]

If ChromeOS is the same as Android to you then I'm sorry for you.

They changed the name but it's pretty much the same.

Eh?

---

Bay Trail Celeron is the "new" Atom.

Chromebox doesn't come with android.

Intel don't call it "Atom" they're phasing out the name. It's Celeron.

They're phasing out the Atom name at this level - but it just means there are two totally different Celeron platforms now. The Bay Trail N2820/2830s - which are based on an Atom-derived architecture, and the significantly more powerful (in both CPU and GPU terms) Haswell series like the 2955U.

Though both are now marketed as Celerons, the Bay Trail is very much "Atom" in inheritance, whilst the 2955U (used in the Chromebox) is very much a Haswell chip (with the benefits of that)

If I had to chose I'd definitely go for the 2955U. The GPU will allow for better quality scaling and the CPU will allow for YADIF 2x de-interlacing of 1080i. The Bay Trail is stuck with lower quality scaling (because it has a lower power GPU) and Bob de-interlacing of 1080i (because the CPU isn't powerful enough)

Great post! Almost sold it to me! But reading of the dual boot thread is total turn off for me!

[xbs08]

And on the 15th post is a spec comparison of chromebox and NUC

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=185329

That chart is comparing the ASUS Chromebox to Intel Haswell NUC not the DN2820.
Or are all NUC the same to you too?

Google ChomeOS and Android differences and you'll learn something today.

They (Intel) change the name to Celeron but it's an "Atom" based architecture.

[MrCrispy]

Bay Trail Celeron is the "new" Atom.

Chromebox doesn't come with android.

Intel don't call it "Atom" they're phasing out the name. It's Celeron.

Ok, ChromeOS. It's Android. No need for semantics!

I'm not sure I'd call ChromeOS 'bloatware'. If dual boot is easy then some might find it rather useful, of course you can always dual boot or run Widnows on NUC as well.

It's bloatware and dual boot isn't easy but is doable to dual boot something like openELEC. NUC is a PC. So can dual boot easily.

There is a thread about dual boot on chrome box

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=194362

And on the 15th post is a spec comparison of chromebox and NUC

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=185329

I've seen that comparison on AnandTech before but its between a Haswell i3 NUC which is much more expensive (and powerful).

I'm hoping development on Chromebox will keep improving, the work by Matt Devo is already amazing. It's better hardware from what I'm reading, if it had shipped with a standard UEFI bios it would really be trivial to dev on it and even run Windows. Another slight benefit is 100GB of Google Drive for 2 years.

[tetsuya]

Ok, ChromeOS. It's Android. No need for semantics!

ChromeOS is based on Gentoo Linux not Android.

[Viewer]

Can xbmc on chromebox switch tv refresh rates? 24p, 50p...
Afaik there is no possibility under android.

[Dougie Fresh]

Atom, Celeron and Pentium are brand names. They are not architectures. The architecture is called Silvermont. Silvermont is broken up into four families. Each family has some combination of Atom, Celeron or Pentium branded processors. Articles calling the new architecture "Atom" were using the brand name incorrectly.

This article explains which processors belong to which brand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvermont (though it too makes the "Atom" mistake).

Pentium: J2xxx, N35xx
Celeron: J1xxx, N28xx
Atom: C2xxx, E38xx, Z3xxx

[jammyb]

Ok, ChromeOS. It's Android. No need for semantics!

ChromeOS is based on Gentoo Linux not Android.

I stand corrected! But it's all Google and I'm not a fan of the stuff!

---

Atom, Celeron and Pentium are brand names. They are not architectures. The architecture is called Silvermont. Silvermont is broken up into four families. Each family has some combination of Atom, Celeron or Pentium branded processors. Articles calling the new architecture "Atom" were using the brand name incorrectly.

This article explains which processors belong to which brand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvermont (though it too makes the "Atom" mistake).

Pentium: J2xxx, N35xx
Celeron: J1xxx, N28xx
Atom: C2xxx, E38xx, Z3xxx

At least I got something half right in this thread! :p

[juramusger]

Though both are now marketed as Celerons, the Bay Trail is very much "Atom" in inheritance, whilst the 2955U (used in the Chromebox) is very much a Haswell chip (with the benefits of that)

If I had to chose I'd definitely go for the 2955U. The GPU will allow for better quality scaling and the CPU will allow for YADIF 2x de-interlacing of 1080i. The Bay Trail is stuck with lower quality scaling (because it has a lower power GPU) and Bob de-interlacing of 1080i (because the CPU isn't powerful enough)

I'm piggybacking on this thread as I'm also considering buying either of the two. How much of a difference is there really in the GPU/CPU department?
I don't need much scaling but I also don't want to run into performance problems in the foreseeable future.

So my question is this:
How much more "future proof" would the Chromebox really be? Or is the Baytrail NUC really "good enough"?

My usage would be XBMC + Backup/NAS server using external HDDs. As they are slowly spinning 2,5'' platters the added speed of the USB3 ports of the Chromebox doesn't really add to the consideration.
What does is fan noise though, has someone compared the two? All I read is that they are both very silent.
I plan on using Ubuntu and take it that the 16GB SSD on the Asus should suffice. In the NUC I would use a 256 GB HDD from my MBP which I plan to change for an SSD.

(If you think that I should open another thread for my specific considerations instead of using this one, feel free to tell me.)