2010-05-24, 13:39
I have my Revo 3600 up and running with XBMCbuntu just fine for months now, but for some reasons I'd rather use the revo now elsewhere as mainly an office PC and go for a new Ion system.
after thinking about building my own Mini-ITX HTPC system for awhile, I've come to the conclusion that neither price nor customization options make that big of a difference, so I started looking again at the complete systems.
besides having been very happy with my revo, the weird form factor and some problems with the fan prevent me from just buying another one. also, replacing internal components is a pain in the arse... the Zotac systems have a much nicer, more ordinary case and I like the overall history and expertise of the manufacturer.
now it's just a decision between the gen1 atom/Ion (MAG) and the pinetrail/Ion2 system (ZBOX). add.: there's also a "Zbox" with gen1 atom that has DDR3 support, I'm referring to the pinetrail Zbox
after some reading, the new pinetrail-Zbox has limited memory bandwidth between the GPU and CPU/RAM compared to the first gen, which -at the moment- results in poor flash acceleration; nvidia might try to fix this. no support for dual channel RAM and only one PCI-E lane for the Ion GPU sucks, even if it is somewhat compensated by the 512MB GPU-only RAM.
HD playback via XBMCbuntu (which is what I'm planning to do nearly 100%) seems just as fine as first gen/MAG, no differences there. at the moment there may be the need for new ALSA drivers, have to check if this would also be the case when using lucid as host OS.
interface-wise both systems should be identical AFAIK. the nice thing about the Zbox is that I can get it completely barebone and install an intel 40GB SSD (which should boost overall performance significantly) while for the MAG I have to pay for a slow HDD inside that I won't be using at all.
guys, what would you do?
is *newer* always also *better* ?
after thinking about building my own Mini-ITX HTPC system for awhile, I've come to the conclusion that neither price nor customization options make that big of a difference, so I started looking again at the complete systems.
besides having been very happy with my revo, the weird form factor and some problems with the fan prevent me from just buying another one. also, replacing internal components is a pain in the arse... the Zotac systems have a much nicer, more ordinary case and I like the overall history and expertise of the manufacturer.
now it's just a decision between the gen1 atom/Ion (MAG) and the pinetrail/Ion2 system (ZBOX). add.: there's also a "Zbox" with gen1 atom that has DDR3 support, I'm referring to the pinetrail Zbox
after some reading, the new pinetrail-Zbox has limited memory bandwidth between the GPU and CPU/RAM compared to the first gen, which -at the moment- results in poor flash acceleration; nvidia might try to fix this. no support for dual channel RAM and only one PCI-E lane for the Ion GPU sucks, even if it is somewhat compensated by the 512MB GPU-only RAM.
HD playback via XBMCbuntu (which is what I'm planning to do nearly 100%) seems just as fine as first gen/MAG, no differences there. at the moment there may be the need for new ALSA drivers, have to check if this would also be the case when using lucid as host OS.
interface-wise both systems should be identical AFAIK. the nice thing about the Zbox is that I can get it completely barebone and install an intel 40GB SSD (which should boost overall performance significantly) while for the MAG I have to pay for a slow HDD inside that I won't be using at all.
guys, what would you do?
is *newer* always also *better* ?
