Never heard of a mini pc with ARM thats on par with a x86 model, so I would go with that
Connor Nelson
Odroid XU4Q with the case you like.
Alternatively, use an x86.
Lucas Hall
I'm not dead set on ARM, but I tend to associate it with lower power usage and less heat generation, so that's why I was thinking about it over x86. You guys think I'll get better linux support with an x86 model?
Hudson Gonzalez
Search for thin clients on ebay. Fuck ARM. Go with Intel or AMD.
You can get one for ~$10-$50 easily and much stronger than any ARM in that price range. Just do your research properly. Youtube/etc.
Bentley Johnson
the support for 86x is loads better, going out of your way for ARM is not a good idea if you want normal desktop software
Aiden Russell
No, but you can get more processing power, and ultimately some onboard atom or pentium or whatever doesn't use all *that* much more electricity.
Still, the Odroid XU4Q might work, too.
Christian Edwards
Maybe on Windows. This is not a huge problem on Linux, though. Most packages work on ARM.
Luis Perry
Odroid Xu4. Has officla android support, usb 3.0, real gigabit NIC, EMMC, (faster and more durable vs sdcards)seperated NIC and USB controller bus, newer decoders included in the purchase. (rpi requires extra for codec licenses)
Install Armbian, librelec or the Android image with f-droid and kodi.
Colton Johnson
OP here, that's also my experience. I used ubuntu on an ARM chromebook for some time, and I could install just about anything from the repository and it would work flawlessly as it would on some x86 machine. Hardware support was horrible though so I gave up after a while. But laptops are trickier in general.
Connor Roberts
HP Elitedesk 800 G1 mini or usdt secondhand on ebay. i5-4590s/8Gb is perfect. Good for windows, linux and hackintosh.
Any case you can recommend? I can only find the official ones, they look quite cheap but no big deal.
Sounds good. Decoders are SoC then or am I misunderstanding you?
Lincoln Jenkins
That's overkill for me but great specs for the price.
Robert Watson
The decoders are burned into the soc just like a x86 gpu/cpu
For example if you are watching a stream your CPU/GPU can offload it into hardware decoding instead of doing it all in software.
This makes your CPU usage go down by like 30%(heat and power consumption too) while being able to stream without skipping or lags.
As new formats come out like av1 you need a newer cpu with a decoder to take advantage otherwise you are forced to use software decoding. Like if you used a computer from 2005 with a newer codec that it doesn't have. A ARM SOC from 2018 with the new codec could watch a 4K stream despite the GPU being less potent.
Mason Turner
RPI makes you pay for a license key to flip a bit in the GPU to allow hardware decoding of mpeg3 for example while Odroid includes it by default.
Benjamin Ross
Ataribox
Landon Morales
Makes sense, thanks. I just found out about the cloudshell case they sell with the odroid, I guess that settles it, that's exactly what I need.
Benjamin Cook
is there any way to "pirate" this bit flip?
Michael Green
I'm also looking for a low-power SBC that has the following: - at least 2 cores - dual-band wifi card that supports AP mode in 2.4 AND 5GHz - (potentially) supported by OpenWRT/LEDE - at least 512 MB of RAM - no need for video output, or if there is, RCA output at low resolutions is enough - integrated storage or space for external storage (speed doesn't matter much, long-term reliability does) - HW supported in the kernel suggestions? anyone knows if such thing exists?
Joseph Cooper
I'm not sure what the user base is like, but these Solidrun router boards looks slick as fuck. solid-run.com/
Hardkernel has some really great support for their new products, but they kinda forget about them when the new boards come out. The Odroid C2 will probably be supported awhile longer because it's a lower priced model meant to compete against Raspberry Pi 3. hardkernel.com/main/main.php
I should note, the Odroid U2 that I bought in 2013 is still faster than anything the Raspbarry Pi foundation has come out with. It and the U3 have been depreciated though.
Benjamin Stewart
anyone knows if there is a list of SBCs (incl the most shitty chinese SBC one can find) that shows hardware specs?
Isaac Perez
Does anything stop you from using a Odroid HC1/2 or XU4Q or such?
Robert Clark
they are too expensive for what they are, IMO. I don't need that much power, and there are some chinese routers with less powerful SoCs but better specs for my use-case
Cooper Jones
There are too many at this point. What you need to know is that all of these companies license ARM cores then rename them. Look at the specs for the ARM Cortex cores, then Google whatever name the manufacture calls it so you can find out what it really is. For instance, Allwinner's A10 is really an ARM Cortex A8. There are many other companies which licence the A8 and then rebrand it like Allwinner did. It is the most confusing part of trying to compare ARM hardware and the companies who do this should be shot.
Nathan Cooper
> there are some chinese routers with less powerful SoCs but better specs for my use-case I'd also have proposed these if there wasn't the >=512MB RAM requirement that seems somewhat harder to meet.
David Ortiz
I know about ARM CPUs being part of families of CPUs, I care more about specs as in wifi/graphics chipsets being used and their support on linux
>better specs for my use-case *except for the RAM... there are not many cheap routers that have 512MB of RAM
Grayson White
shit, I hit send right after you replied... yeah, it's kinda hard to get a cheap device with 512MB of RAM and ac wifi. I got some cheap orange pi zeros, but those don't support ac, the linux support and their wifi chip is complete shit, though I still managed to make it work in AP mode under openwrt..
David Richardson
>*except for the RAM... there are not many cheap routers that have 512MB of RAM Yea, exactly.
The ODroids are some of the cheapest "known good" devices that meet this requirement.
Maybe some BananaPi or Rock64 or something would also work, but they got less distros and less reviews and the reviews are more mixed overall.
Why do you need 512MB RAM + two cores but not actually a faster machine anyhow...? Going to run a MooseFS storage node or something on it?
Luis Hall
for running shitty PHP webapps + cache plugins or some kind of caching server
Wyatt Sullivan
Ah yes. If it's PHP bloat like Nextcloud or some such and then a cache server on top, I guess I'd just throw 1-4GB RAM at it myself.
[There's a good chance that I'd not want it combined with the LEDE/OpenWRT Router or AP though, PHP webapp cache requirements bloating shouldn't require me to redo the networking in general, too.]
Nicholas Baker
Adreno, Vivante, VC4/5, Mali, PowerVR are the big 5 GPUs used with ARM. ARM and Imaginationtech have thrown shit fits with people trying to reverse engineer Mali and PowerVR GPUs. Adreno has Freedreno drivers, but they are specific to Qualcomm. VC4 has been reverse engineered, but that is specific to Broadcom. This leaves Vivante as the only freeagent which is used with various manufacturers and has open sourced drivers. Just assume every Wifi chip in ARM SBCs will need proprietary firmware to work.
Connor Miller
>Nextcloud nah, meant to say some CMS like wordpress
>[There's a good chance that I'd not want it combined with the LEDE/OpenWRT Router or AP though, PHP webapp cache requirements bloating shouldn't require me to redo the networking in general, too.] I don't get it, why would I need to redo the networking?
let me explain: the idea is to serve dynamic content to a few people at a time (say, 5-10 people connected to the AP, 5-10 requests per seconds at most). while that shouldn't require much power, I haven't found a CMS as featureful as wordpress and similar PHP webapps. I mean, if I could run a whole site on static content, that'd be great, but...
I said GPUs that as an example, but, as I mentioned in the requirements list, a shitty RCA output would be more than enough
Matthew Bailey
I have that box there. Using Android TV on it, it acts as my smart TV. Hardware is good but not sure how good linux support is though.
Matthew Martin
Beelink S2 Intel Gemini Lake 4100 Intel HD600 4GB DDR4 + 128GB M.2 2242 SSD Dual Band AC wifi + Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Lan Type C USB + 2 USB3.0 + 2 USB 2.0 Dual HDMI Did I mention dedicated 2.5" sata bay? All for two fiddy USD. gearbest.com/mini-pc/pp_009591678621.html?wid=1433363#goodsDetail
>Implying AMD makes anything remotely competitive to this form factor.
Charles Gray
The architecture is relatively new and they're focus right now isn't in mini-PCs. It would be great if they threw a bone, though since Ryzen is incredibly power efficient