[shabuboy]

That is a great price for the BI320.

[wrxtasy]

Go the Zotac BI320 for that price, its Haswell microarchitecture and will run Kodi very well.

[Matt Devo]

P.S. I guess this box will contain a "Braswell" processor, which I can only guess.... based on the name... will fall someplace in between Bay Trails and Haswell. This of course gives me an excuse to ask Matt Devo what he thinks of "Braswell" for a Kodi box.

Braswell = successor to BayTrail-M/D (mini-PCs). Similar to Haswell->Broadwell, it's basically the same architecture with a die shrink and a few spec bumps. It will be faster and use less power, but I don't believe the GPU specs have been released yet (unconfirmed 8th-gen LP, up to 16 EUs), so it's hard to evaluate in terms of Kodi performance relative to existing products. We'll have to wait and see until something gets into the hands of reviewers, but I'd make an educated guess that we're looking at something approaching the Haswell Celeron in terms of GPU performance, but not matching the Broadwell Celeron.

[noggin]

that's also a great deal for $100. I just can't recommend BayTrail devices to people when Haswell devices can be had for slightly more and offer significantly more video playback capability.

So, um, just for my edification, you're saying that even though this box:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...24G2HM7503

is quad core (rather than dual) and even though it's clocked faster (1.83GHz) than the other two boxes I've mentioned, you still wouldn't recomment it because it is Bay Trails?

Absolutely. The GPUs on the BayTrail Celerons are very cut-down (so basic upscaling only, basic deinterlacing), whereas the Haswell Celerons have a much more powerful GPU (so Lanczos 3 high quality upscaling and Motion Compensated high quality deinterlacing are both supported). And each core on the Haswell CPU is more powerful than a core on the Baytrail CPU, as the Haswell is a more powerful architecture.

The result is that a Haswell Celeron 2955U (and 2957U) is a much better HTPC processor than the Baytrail devices. There's a reason the Chromebox (which is Haswell Celeron based) is so widely recommended here, it really is a great solution, and the Zotac BI320 similarly.

[Robotica]

Already noticed the Asrock Beebox (Celeron N3000 Braswell with 12 EU's - 4W, usb3.0, type C, 2x hdmi, displayport)?

No, your mention of it if the first reference I've seen to such a box.

Gee! It appears that everybody is getting into this market now. That's great news for everybody who wants, plans, or is already using Kodi, of course.

That AsRock box definitely looks interesing, but of course, the price is critically important. And I'm not seeing anyplace online when any price info has yet been disclosed.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I do like the look of it. It appears that Asrock had the good sense to put a USB 3.0 port on the front, and also to equip the thing with an IR receiver.

P.S. I guess this box will contain a "Braswell" processor, which I can only guess.... based on the name... will fall someplace in between Bay Trails and Haswell. This of course gives me an excuse to ask Matt Devo what he thinks of "Braswell" for a Kodi box.

Braswell = successor to BayTrail-M/D (mini-PCs). Similar to Haswell->Broadwell, it's basically the same architecture with a die shrink and a few spec bumps. It will be faster and use less power, but I don't believe the GPU specs have been released yet (unconfirmed 8th-gen LP, up to 16 EUs), so it's hard to evaluate in terms of Kodi performance relative to existing products. We'll have to wait and see until something gets into the hands of reviewers, but I'd make an educated guess that we're looking at something approaching the Haswell Celeron in terms of GPU performance, but not matching the Broadwell Celeron.

I'm not sure either but spec-wize it looks great. GPU power is upgraded and CPU-wize it seems capable. However, a N3150 would be much nicer. My guess is that they will be more expensive than Chromeboxs and only giving some extra features. So somewhere between the RPI2/Chromebox and NUC/Brix maybe...

I still wonder if quad-cores pays off versus dual-core with Kodi usage?

EDIT: Anandtech review.

[DocG]

I'm no expert, but as far as I can make out, the same is all true also of HEVC and Hi10P. It all sounds great in theory, but in practice there's essentially zero content at this point in time

Don't know how I've missed this. I take it you don't watch Anime?

Oh! And by the way, here's another one I saw today that's also pushing down close to that $100 magic number:

Zotac ZBOX-BI320-U
http://www.amazon.com/Zotac-Mini-Barebon...zotac+zbox

Unless the MSI Cubi drops to $106 again that is probably the best "x86" to buy at the moment. Not the cheapest, but the best value for money.

[z31fanatic]

Newegg has the GIGABYTE Intel Celeron GB-BXBT-2807 1 x 204Pin SO-DIMM Intel HD Graphics Integrated by CPU Mini-PC Barebone for $100 - $10 rebate [Exp 6/30] = $90 with free shipping. Has an Intel Celeron N2807 CPU and HDMI output.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...21_desktop