[nooryani84]

It's quite weak and it's not even Baytrail.... http://ark.intel.com/products/56056/Inte...e-1_10-GHz

This is a rather old sandy bridge based CPU, not sure if the 24P was fixed here either. Should be a bit faster than a RPi, though the iGPU is questionable.

What are you skeptical about specifically? Is there any reason I should be concerned about it's ability to navigate menus smoothly using Aeon Nox, or play h.264 1080p mkv bluray rips? If so, please provide specific info. If not, then your comments are insignificant to the purpose of this thread. I realize this is an older CPU. I was looking for a cheap alternative to the Lenovo Q190, and whitebelly seems to have found it for me.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be negative. I haven't had any personal experience with these exact CPUs so I may be making false assumptions based on the last generation of Atoms. The low clock speed is the only thing I was looking at, though I have one of these in my old laptop http://ark.intel.com/products/36697/Inte...00-MHz-FSB which runs 1080P just fine in Linux.

So this should probably perform just fine for XBMC.

---

This looks interesting as well http://www.amazon.com/Zotac-1-5GHz-Dual-...B00FXLML8U

[whitebelly]

$99 gets you a Foxconn 847 at the Egg. Not sure how long the sale will last. Add RAM and USB drive and you are set.

THANK YOU, WHITEBELLY!!!

I have a couple of Foxconns, not the 847 but the older NT with the AMD A45 Hudsons. The 847 is an upgrade, IMO. Openelec from USB runs great on mine, never had any issues and very quiet. They run a bit hot, but 3 years running my first one is still ticking with almost daily use. I think you'll be satisfied. The included mounting bracket comes in handy.

Make sure you update the BIOS before anything else if needed. If you boot from USB, use the USB2 ports on the back, you may not be able to boot from the USB3 ports. I still use a USB3 stick though, its faster even in the USB2 ports.

[maddog808]

To me it seems like a steal at that price!!! just checked it says out of stock now. I think it could have been a pricing error lol good job maddog808 please report back on your experience with the box

Nope. Not sure what you're looking at. It's still available, along with the free DVD burner:

Foxconn nT-i2847 + DVD Burner for $99 @ Newegg

Sorry, I didn't mean to be negative. I haven't had any personal experience with these exact CPUs so I may be making false assumptions based on the last generation of Atoms. The low clock speed is the only thing I was looking at, though I have one of these in my old laptop http://ark.intel.com/products/36697/Inte...00-MHz-FSB which runs 1080P just fine in Linux.

So this should probably perform just fine for XBMC.

---

This looks interesting as well http://www.amazon.com/Zotac-1-5GHz-Dual-...B00FXLML8U

No worries, nooriyani. Sometimes, real world experience is more valuable than clock speed & CPU comparisons.

I'll report back later next week on the performance with Openelec installed on the internal HDD.

[maddog808]

I have a couple of Foxconns, not the 847 but the older NT with the AMD A45 Hudsons. The 847 is an upgrade, IMO. Openelec from USB runs great on mine, never had any issues and very quiet. They run a bit hot, but 3 years running my first one is still ticking with almost daily use. I think you'll be satisfied. The included mounting bracket comes in handy.

Make sure you update the BIOS before anything else if needed. If you boot from USB, use the USB2 ports on the back, you may not be able to boot from the USB3 ports. I still use a USB3 stick though, its faster even in the USB2 ports.

I hope the WD internal 5400RPM HDD doesn't get this thing too hot! I was planning on using it to boot Openelec, as well as store all the media.

I also bought one of these for my buddy to put in his bedroom. He'll be booting Openelec from USB, so thank you for the tip about using the ports on the back.

If this works out, I may need to upgrade my bedroom box (which is currently a ATV1 running Crystalbuntu).

[Dougie Fresh]

Somewhere in here is a thread with all the testing I did and results for the Celeron 847 (no the Foxconn but a DIY). To summarize, it's too slow for Windows but runs OpenELEC great. In OE and WMP it played everything I threw at it. On Windows XBMC's internal player wouldn't play most things without stuttering, DXVA on had different issues with macroblocking and DXVA off it stuttered.

So, if you're running OE it'll be great.

[maddog808]

Somewhere in here is a thread with all the testing I did and results for the Celeron 847 (no the Foxconn but a DIY). To summarize, it's too slow for Windows but runs OpenELEC great. In OE and WMP it played everything I threw at it. On Windows XBMC's internal player wouldn't play most things without stuttering, DXVA on had different issues with macroblocking and DXVA off it stuttered.

So, if you're running OE it'll be great.

Dougie Fresh is correct (he usually is )

I got the Foxconn n-Ti2847, loaded it with 2GB RAM, and the 750GB HDD, installed Openelec to the HDD using a USB flash drive, and copied over 190 or so HD movies. I'm very pleased with the results. It actually navigates the library, and plays the movies smoother than the Lenovo Q190 & Revo RL80 did for me.












Here's a video showing the results, with some quick and sloppy text boxes for reference:





I would say that this is one of the best "bang for your buck" Openelec machines on the market right now. I didn't have to tweak anything to make it work, and the $13 MCE Remote works perfect. Even the "i" button pulls up the contextual menu, without any tweaking with the keymap editor.

Total out of pocket, including RAM, HDD, and remote was $197.

If you store your media elsewhere, then you can replace the HDD with a USB stick. This would bring the cost down to ~ $140.

To summarize: I'm a fan.

[MrCrispy]

I'm very impressed! When I started watching the video in the Aeon showcase mode, I said to myself, "that's fine, but what about if you scroll really fast, eh? That'll show the puny little Foxconn!". Then you proceeded to do exactly that and it was still smooth

I don't really know how much faster a modern BAyTrail/Haswell setup + SSD would be, but I didn't see any slowdown in the video you posted, and that's running from a local usb+hdd, not a ssd. And it sounds like the install is simple with little to no tweaking required.

I agree - great bang for buck.

[maddog808]

You make a good point. There are so many people on this forum worried about CPU speeds, SSDs, etc. So they spend more $$ than they need to for XBMC.

Don't misunderstand the above statement. There are definitely good and valid reasons for someone to get a more powerful CPU and maybe even an SSD. I have both in my main HTPC, which I'm using right now to type this response via Windows 7.

For basic Openelec installations, though, I can't think of any good reasons to get a more powerful computer.

My buddy bought one of these n-Ti2847's for his bedroom. He's going to use a USB thumb drive in place of the internal HDD for Openelec, and stream media over the network from his Unraid server. I'm going to test it here at my house using my media library (800+ movies, 25 TV series-all episodes, 300+ music artists collections), which is stored on my Unraid server. I'll be testing it via WiFi, and also wired ethernet, and I'll report back with my findings.

BTW, I would definitely suggest NOT updating the bios firmware on this Foxconn. As soon as I did, the fan maxed out, and was extremely loud! I reverted back to the original firmware, and it fixed the issue. The fan is now barely noticeable, and only if you put your ear right up to it. There are no fan speed settings in the bios, and no easy way to do this in Openelec, so thank goodness leaving the firmware as is works. Yet another good reason this is the perfect Openelec box; you don't need to update the firmware, or do any additional hacking. Just plug in the RAM, install Openelec, and begin the XBMC adventure. I wish I had something cheap and easy like this when I was a Noob a few years ago.

[Dougie Fresh]

Awesome. I've been saying for a long time the Celeron SoC are hard to beat for OpenELEC. The C10x7U is even better and will run WMC very well too, not just OpenELEC.

[noggin]

Awesome. I've been saying for a long time the Celeron SoC are hard to beat for OpenELEC. The C10x7U is even better and will run WMC very well too, not just OpenELEC.

Why can't we get a 2955U box or motherboard other than the Chromebox and the Brix? Surely it's the perfect XBMC HTPC platform?

[maddog808]

Awesome. I've been saying for a long time the Celeron SoC are hard to beat for OpenELEC. The C10x7U is even better and will run WMC very well too, not just OpenELEC.

C10x7U, huh? Is there an affordable build based on that CPU? Google doesn't return much info on it, except for a few posts by you on this forum. Is this what the NUC 2820 has in it?

[MrCrispy]

Awesome. I've been saying for a long time the Celeron SoC are hard to beat for OpenELEC. The C10x7U is even better and will run WMC very well too, not just OpenELEC.

Why can't we get a 2955U box or motherboard other than the Chromebox and the Brix? Surely it's the perfect XBMC HTPC platform?

What CPU/platform gets put in is probably dependent on manufacturing yields, binning, and market segmentation. You could ask the same question about why Intel artificially limits certain processors.

I think NUC for HTPC is a rather niche segment which no one really cares about. The target market is education/office replacement which are very different needs. You'd think by including a IR receiver Intel is thinking about HTPC users a bit though.

[noggin]

Awesome. I've been saying for a long time the Celeron SoC are hard to beat for OpenELEC. The C10x7U is even better and will run WMC very well too, not just OpenELEC.

C10x7U, huh? Is there an affordable build based on that CPU? Google doesn't return much info on it, except for a few posts by you on this forum. Is this what the NUC 2820 has in it?

I think by C10x7U Dougie Fresh meant C1007U and C1037U. I've got a Revo RL80 with a 1007U in it and it runs OpenElec really well (albeit with the 24p issues that Ivy Bridge processors have).

The C10x7U series are all Ivy Bridge Celerons (which are the little brothers to the Ivy Bridge Pentiums, i3, i5 and i7s)

The N2820 NUC is based on an N2820 Bay Trail Celeron, which although branded as Celeron isn't a junior i3/i5/i7 or a Haswell architecture, but is instead a development of the range previously branded as Intel Atom (and has a significantly cut down GPU in comparison with fewer execution units for example)

[maddog808]

DUH!!

I feel like such an idiot!! I was sitting there Googling C10x7U. LOL

Yes, I agree that the C1007U and C1037U are definitely great bang for buck.

I almost ordered one of those Chinese ones from Aliexpress, but needed something quicker for this particular project.

Thanks for clarifying!!

Matt

[nabberuk]

It's quite weak and it's not even Baytrail.... http://ark.intel.com/products/56056/Inte...e-1_10-GHz

This is a rather old sandy bridge based CPU, not sure if the 24P was fixed here either. Should be a bit faster than a RPi, though the iGPU is questionable.

Should be a bit faster than a rip! What are you talking about! It' loads faster than a pi. Plays anything I've thrown at it including 50gb blurays