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harvey21 · 2015-02-11, 03:52

I have a Zbox nano ad-12 that just died on me after 2 years of decent performance. I had put a 750GB momentus XT hard drive, 8GB of RAM, windows 7 and it was mostly great for running xbmc. looking at the forums, the NUC (DN2820FYKH) or the Asus chromebox (M004U) would probably be the best options right now.
The chromebox (with openelec) seems like the better choice but in that case, the HDD, RAM and windows 7 would go to waste and I would have to stream everything rather play local files. The NUC is ok but it doesn't bitstream HD audio on win7. What would you guys recommend (nuc, chromebox, something else). I want something to last 4-5 years so I'm not even considering zbox anymore.

shabuboy · (This post was last modified: 2015-02-11, 04:45 by shabuboy.)

Had the same system until 2 months ago! As a client only though...

(2015-02-11, 03:52)harvey21 Wrote: I'm not even considering zbox anymore.

That is a shame, as Zotac ZBOX B1320 seems a popular choice these days. Same for Lenovo Q190.
Those two have threads if you are willing to read about them.

Also, did you look in the sticky thread "Advice on Kodi Boxes, NASes, and Hard Drives- FireTVs, Chromeboxes, ARM Sticks, etc"

But my .02, take this opportunity and separate the data from the client, NAS vs Client. Personally, HTPCs are a thing of the past... Unless you have very specific needs.

wrxtasy · (This post was last modified: 2015-02-11, 07:12 by wrxtasy.)

Get the cheap Zotac BI320, the Bare Bones edition - at least you can re-use Windows 7 and the RAM. The HDD as well. You can even set this up as a dual boot OpenElec / Win7 machine.

Best quality video and Audio you can get in any Kodi media Box then Smile

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=211925

Tip: - any box with a Intel Celeron Haswell microarchitecture CPU (2955U/2957U) will give you the best results for the price paid.

You are dreaming if you want hardware to last 4-5 years. Buy something cheap and upgrade. You will blow too much cash otherwise and hardware will become extremely obsolete.

The other option is what a lot of us are doing with a cheap cost effective twin setup with proper HDMI CEC control, the RPi2 is the anchor device when using this method, have a look in this thread for ideas....

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=217803

Smile

Mark142 · (This post was last modified: 2015-02-11, 14:36 by Mark142.)

Agree with wrxtasy, I have Zotac B1320 as my main box and raspberry Pi2 in the bedroom. Both are excellent and I am now looking to get second B1320 barebones, both running a dual boot like wrxtasy described. Excellent box will use parts from other boxes I have lying around to complete the job.

Ultimately I have slowly upgraded my previous AMD E350 , Revo and Baytrail J1800 set ups to these to allow decent viewing of 1080i live content here in the UK. I'm sure these will last a while now.

harvey21 · 2015-02-11, 22:52

Thank you all for the advise and the links

(2015-02-11, 04:40)shabuboy Wrote: But my .02, take this opportunity and separate the data from the client, NAS vs Client. Personally, HTPCs are a thing of the past... Unless you have very specific needs.

My long term goal is to get a NAS but I want to do it right with a 4-bay synology full of 3-4TB drives and I don't have the budget for this right now.

(2015-02-11, 07:02)wrxtasy Wrote: Get the cheap Zotac BI320, the Bare Bones edition - at least you can re-use Windows 7 and the RAM. The HDD as well. You can even set this up as a dual boot OpenElec / Win7 machine.

I need to do some research to see if my 8GB DDR3 RAM will be compatible with the DDR3L slot

(2015-02-11, 07:02)wrxtasy Wrote: You are dreaming if you want hardware to last 4-5 years. Buy something cheap and upgrade. You will blow too much cash otherwise and hardware will become extremely obsolete.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect 4-5 years from a cheap PC. I was quite satisfied with the AD12 until it died. I just need reliability. I don't foresee requiring 3D or 4K in the near future.

z31fanatic · 2015-02-11, 23:30

(2015-02-11, 22:52)harvey21 Wrote: I need to do some research to see if my 8GB DDR3 RAM will be compatible with the DDR3L slot

It will be fine. I set mine up yesterday. I installed 2x2GB regular DDR3 1333mHz 1.5v sticks and it worked with no problems. I didn't even have to change anything in BIOS.

harvey21 · 2015-02-11, 23:33

(2015-02-11, 23:30)z31fanatic Wrote:
(2015-02-11, 22:52)harvey21 Wrote: I need to do some research to see if my 8GB DDR3 RAM will be compatible with the DDR3L slot
It will be fine. I set mine up yesterday. I installed 2x2GB regular DDR3 1333mHz 1.5v sticks and it worked with no problems. I didn't even have to change anything in BIOS.

Excellent, seriously considering this now.