[grumpygamer]

Hi everyone, merry xmas and a happy new year!

Father Christmas stopped by and dropped an envelope this year with 200£ in and I was thinking about upgrading my home player with something more modern and with a bit more kick.

At the moment I have an ageing revo3600 that is starting to stutter with some weirdly encoded movies.
It also is VEERY slow at startup especially when scanning for new items.
Also just browsing through the collection si quite slow and painful and not smooth.

The Pseudo TV Live add-on is super slow to start up too and I assume the nvidia ION contained inside is unable to cope with 4k movies (kind-of future proofing here, but I already saw ads for 4k TVs under £400).

Anyway, these are some of the reasons I would like to upgrade (as well as some emulator goodness coming around with the help of retro-arch / retroplayer).

My question is what hardware would be good enough/or big upgrade?
I also would like to stay under £200 and consider I already have a spare intel SSD and a ITX(?) case with a PCIE riser card; I also have some ddr2 memory hanging around somewhere, but no processor/motherboard/BD reader (not essential).
Wifi is not necessary as I'm using a wired connection.

If budget allows it I can sell the case and get a different one as this one is a bit bulky.
Thanks in advance!

Thanks for your input

[buzzqw]

Someone already said Chromebox ? http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=194362

BHH

[noggin]

Chromebox will do pretty much everything you've said you need - but won't re-use your components apart from a remote control if you have one. (Chromebox happily plays 4K H264 at 24p with hardware acceleration without breaking a sweat, and outputs 2160/24-30p via HDMI with no problems. (I've tested)

The dual core Haswell CPU/GPU combo is close to perfect at the moment for pure Kodi requirements. 4K HEVC is the only thing they won't do - but not much does at the moment...

[grumpygamer]

hmm... very interesting. Thanks.
Also will it allow me some retro gaming in the future?
Openelec seems quite a hassle to install, but I will have to endure that I guess.

What model do you suggest?

[noggin]

Asus Chromebox is good. Quieter than HP, and has two RAM slots rather than one. If you import from US to another country then beware the mains power connector is moulded into PSU so you can't just swap out a cable as you can with most laptop PSUs.

Installing anything on the Chromebox requires a little work - but much less than building a PC.

Unscrew case, remove write protect screw, type a couple of lines of code from the wiki in to run Matt Devo's script. Install OE as per any other PC. (Make sure you have a normal wired USB keyboard to hand for initial bits)

Takes minutes.

Can't comment on games emulation - not something I do. My OE box is purely for media playback and TV viewing.

[grumpygamer]

Ok cheers. I will buy an Asus one.
There seem to be two models, but the better one seems to be: Chromebox-M075U which has an Intel Core i3-4010U.
That comes at a whopping 350+ £ though
The < 200£ one is the celeron processor version that makes me wonder how much better it would be compared to the current atom processor.

[buzzqw]

the Asus's cpu is a Celeron ( based on Haswell) not a dumb atom (with respect, i own an old asus 330)
performance wise whould be double, at least

EDIT:
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Celeron-29...l-Atom-230
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/493/Int...2955U.html

Passmark >>> 301(n230) 1587(celeron 2955u)

and btw with openelec it's the perfect appliance


BHH

[grumpygamer]

ok thanks for clearing that up for me.
Now I'm just going to buy it and all these different models pop up:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Chromebox-D...B00M0M82CY
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Chromebox-M...B00LFS6NR0
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Chromebox-D...B00M0M827Y

Any ideas on what the differences are besides RAM quantity?
Obviously I'll shoot for the 4gb model.

[buzzqw]

for OpenElec 2gb is more then enough ( Chromebox M060U)
BUT if you want go with windows buy the 4gb box , the Chromebox M031U

i3 version are for "pc duty" then htpc

BHH

[noggin]

Ok cheers. I will buy an Asus one.
There seem to be two models, but the better one seems to be: Chromebox-M075U which has an Intel Core i3-4010U.
That comes at a whopping 350+ £ though
The < 200£ one is the celeron processor version that makes me wonder how much better it would be compared to the current atom processor.

Haswell Celeron is a great Kodi solution. No need for the i3. 2GB RAM is fine for OpenElec. Beware that whilst Windows 8.1 runs on the Chromebox, I don't believe the HDMI drivers support HDCP or HDMI Audio. (HDMI Audio is fine under Linux)

[Stereodude]

BUT if you want go with windows buy the 4gb box , the Chromebox M031U

As grumpygamer alluded to, don't buy a Chromebox to run Windows on it if you need HDMI audio. Audio over HDMI is completely non functional in Windows. The Zotac BI320 is a potentially good option if you want to run Windows and get one when it's on sale.

[grumpygamer]

Ok cheers. I will buy an Asus one.
There seem to be two models, but the better one seems to be: Chromebox-M075U which has an Intel Core i3-4010U.
That comes at a whopping 350+ £ though
The < 200£ one is the celeron processor version that makes me wonder how much better it would be compared to the current atom processor.

Haswell Celeron is a great Kodi solution. No need for the i3. 2GB RAM is fine for OpenElec. Beware that whilst Windows 8.1 runs on the Chromebox, I don't believe the HDMI drivers support HDCP or HDMI Audio. (HDMI Audio is fine under Linux)

Apparently they all have "celeron processors", just unsure what the differences are.

[jjd-uk]

Personally I think there far better options then the Chromebox (retailing from £165) available now, at least in the UK anyway.

ZOTAC ZBOX BI320 Barebones @ £92 http://www.lambda-tek.com/Zotac-ZBOX-BI3...h/B1989791

For something in a smaller form factor there is the Asus Vivo Mini UN42:

Barebone @ £119 http://www.lambda-tek.com/ASUS-UN42-M016M~sh/B1942502
Full system including Windows 8.1 with Bing @ £191 http://www.lambda-tek.com/ASUS-UN42-M015Y-~sh/B1942505

Both of these are based on a newer version of the Haswell Celeron used in the various models of Chromebox, and these will allow the choice of Linux or Windows (don't even consider running Windows on a Chromebox if you want HDMI audio).

[grumpygamer]

haha. Now I'm confused again. That's why I need you guys!
I was reading some specs but there is no mention about 4k video.
Also I have no clue about all these different processors, there are so many! So which one is better?
I prefer these last ones as there is not a lot of tinkering to get openelec installed.

I will be running openelec on the machine so no worries about windows and cloud storage.

http://www.lambda-tek.com/ASUS-UN42-M016...productTop this also doesn't seem to have ram or HDD, but it's not very clear.

[jjd-uk]

That's the barebones, so you supply the RAM & mSata SSD.

The same unit at a similar price @ http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-vivo-m...bone%20PCs