[oWarchild]

Last year and up until now the Haswell Chromebox has been the reference Kodi box on the low powered x86 CPU segment. This year that will probably change due to 4K and HEVC/H.265 requirements, and Braswell is a promising candidate to take the Chromebox's place:

I would not invest _any_ money into a Broadwell. Especially as the new atom braswell has real HEVC support, even on linux. But on linux the ffmpeg hwaccel is still missing ... I personally go with a 3150 Braswell, when available.

Note that the Braswell may not be able to hardware decode HEVC 10-bit (main10 profile), only 8-bit. More info here.

In the last few days many Braswell boxes and motherboards have been announced and for the sake of sanity I'll try to keep an updated list here, highlighting key features such as CPU, memory (check quote below), video ports, etc. If you know of any other Braswell box/motherboard post it on this thread and I'll add it to this post.

single sodimm slot = single channel memory = potential limitation for 4K. Also, looks like HDMI 1.4, so 2160p60 not an option anyway

Also check this video: https://youtu.be/xEG3xYoct38

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Boxes

Asus VivoMini UN45 / UN45H

• Intel Braswell Celeron N3000 / N3150
  
• 2 x SODIMM slots DDR3L (1333MHz / 1600MHz)
  
• 1 x M.2 SSD slot
  
• 1 x 2.5“ SSD or HDD (UN45H only)
  
• 1 x mini-DisplayPort* (I/O ports may vary with model)
  
• 1 x HDMI*
  
• 1 x VGA
  
• Fanless: UN45: yes, UN45H: no
  

ASRock Beebox

• Intel Braswell Celeron N3000 / N3150
  
• 2 x SODIMM slots DDR3L 1600MHz
  
• 1 x mSATA SSD
  
• 1 x 2.5“ SSD or HDD
  
• 1 x DisplayPort 1.1 (source)
  
• 2 x HDMI 1.4b (source)
  
• IR receiver: yes
  
• Fanless: N3000: yes, N3150: no
  
• Review: techspot.com | technikaffe.de (translation)
  
• N3000 Price: barebones: $130 / €140, no-OS black or white: $200, gold: $220
  
• N3150 Price: barebones: $155 / €160, no-OS black or white: $220, gold: $240
  

Intel NUC NUC5CPYH / NUC5PPYH

• Intel Braswell Celeron N3050 / Pentium N3700
  
• 1 x SODIMM slots
  
• 1 x 2.5“ SSD or HDD up to 9.5mm
  
• 1 x HDMI 1.4b
  
• 1 x VGA
  
• IR receiver: yes
  
• Fanless: no
  
• Review: NUC5CPYH: technikaffe.de (translation) | nucblog.net, NUC5PPYH: technikaffe.de (translation)
  
• Price: NUC5CPYH: $129.00 / €132, NUC5PPYH: $177.99 / €190
  

Gigabyte Brix GB-BACE-3000 / GB-BACE-3150

• Intel Braswell Celeron N3000 / N3150
  
• 1 x SODIMM slots DDR3L (1066MHz / 1600MHz)
  
• 1 x 2.5“ SSD or HDD up to 9.5mm
  
• 1 x HDMI (max resolution: 3840x2160 @ 30 Hz)
  
• 1 x VGA
  
• Fanless: N3000: yes, N3150: no
  
• Review: hardwareluxx.com
  

ECS Liva X2

• Intel Braswell Celeron N3050
  
• 1 x SODIMM slots DDR3L
  
• 32GB or 64GB of eMMC flash storage
  
• 1 x M.2 SSD expansion slot
  
• 1 x HDMI*
  
• 1 x VGA
  
• Fanless: yes
  
• Review: anandtech
  
• Price: $170
  

Minix Z series

• Intel Braswell Celeron N3150 / Pentium N3700
  
• 1 x HDMI*
  
• 1 x DisplayPort*
  
• 1 x S/PDIF
  
• Fanless: yes
  

Zotac Zbox Nano

• Intel Braswell Celeron N3150
  
• 2 x SODIMM slots DDR3L-1600
  
• 1 x 2.5“ SSD or HDD
  
• 1 x HDMI*
  
• 1 x DisplayPort*
  
• 1 x VGA
  
• Fanless: yes
  

So far all boxes feature Gigabit LAN and 802.11ac WiFi so I've removed them from the spec lists.

* HDMI/DisplayPort version unknown

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Motherboards
Some noteworthy Mini-ITX motherboards

ASRock N3150-ITX / N3150DC-ITX / N3700-ITX

• Intel Braswell Celeron N3150 / Pentium N3700
  
• 2 x SODIMM slots DDR3/DDR3L (1066MHz / 1600MHz)
  
• 1 x DisplayPort 1.1a with max. resolution up to 4K x 2K (3840x2160) @ 30Hz or 2560x1600 @ 60Hz
  
• 1 x HDMI with max. resolution up to 4K x 2K (3840x2160) @ 30Hz or 2560x1600 @ 60Hz
  
• 1 x DVI-D with max. resolution up to 1920x1200 @ 60Hz
  
• 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
  
• Reviews: techspot.com / nl.hardware.info (translation)
  
• Price: N3150-ITX: €84, N3700-ITX: €112
  

MSI N3700I ECO

• Intel Braswell Pentium N3700
  
• 2 x SODIMM slots DDR3 (1333MHz / 1600MHz)
  
• 1 x HDMI*
  
• 1 x VGA
  

Other motherboards

• Intel Braswell Celeron N3000 / N3050 / N3150 / Pentium N3700
  
• Review: linuxgizmos - Round-up: 12 Braswell-based Mini-ITX boards
  

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Notes

Regarding the CPUs, the key difference is the number of cores, N3000 and N3050 are dual core while N3150 and N3700 are quad core:
Intel Ark - N3000 < N3050 < N3150 < N3700

Unfortunately most of the HDMI / DisplayPort versions are still unknown which is a bit annoying as anything below HDMI 2.0 / DisplayPort 1.2 won't be able to output 4K (3840x2160) @ 60Hz. Read more about this in AnandTech: Future-proofing HTPCs for the 4K Era: HDMI, HDCP and HEVC.

Hi10P: a sample test suggests the Braswell quad-core has enough power to software decode 1080p Hi10P anime.

HD Audio Bitreaming (DTS-HD and TrueHD): currently there is no Windows driver support but @fritsch has reported it works on linux / OpenELEC. More details on intel communities.