I am a confirmed HTPC user, I have 2 in the house. One, more powerful, is used to rip Blu rays down to NAS, (plus play, Netflix/Amazon Prime, Web browsing) the other is used simply to play movies, browising, word processing and "Old" gaming - I am a big fan of Total War, old versions.
Total silent operation is a must. I do not care how quiet the fan is, in soft parts of movie playback I can hear it.
The old i3 NUC, in a fanless case, makes for an excellent low power HPTC. A Broadwell U will be as good.
My problem is then I am not sure even that power is necessary for most HTPC use where simply streaming from NAS or similar external disk. For the next HTPC I am looking forward to reviews of Intels Bay Tree on a stick, so small it could be stuck behind my AV receiver
Having 'too much' power for an HTPC has two main advantages: 1) Interface speed. This is both for actual rendering of the interface bells & whistles, and for populating large directories when browsing. 2) CODEC futureproofing. H.265 is on the horizon, and Hi10p H.264 has some very nice benefits in bitrate reduction (or better perceptual quality at the same bitrate), but low power hardware that relies on fixed-function decoder blocks will be left high and dry. Even if they DO have a FFB for a desired CODEC, it may not be sufficient to playback all files (e.g. the number of Level 4.0 h.264 decoders that can't handle full-bitrate Blu Ray streams).
I'm not sure you realize how little processing power is actually used for rendering. Even now on an old dual core pentium my htpc barely hits 10% utilization on one core while watching h.264 stuff at 1080p. My second htpc which has a ~$55 amd 5xxx series card does most of it via the video card, which also is nowhere even close to being taxed.
This setup is WWWAAAYYYY past the needs of any kind of streaming/media/htpc. At these price ranges you can actually build a pretty decent desktop with a dedicated graphics card. Yes, it won't be this small, but you will actually have real graphics performance (i.e. a gtx 960 or r9 280, etc).
Wouldn't you consider an AMD-based system a better option for an HTPC? Asking as I am considering one. I recently bought an AMD-based laptop and I am extremely pleased with it as I find it much more effective for casual gaming and, frankly, the CPU performance gap with Intel is "irrelevant" for HTPC use (at least the one I have in mind).
YankeeDDL: Short answer is yes, AMD laptop in many cases is a much better HTPC (unless it has a fan!)
But will it look good with the rest of your AV kit? My main HTPC is in a HDPLEX 3 case, which looks great (but pricey), my second HTPC is an i3 NUC in a Tranquil fanless case - again fits right into the AV style.
I guess it depends on what you want. Edzieba is clearly much more of a power user of an HTPC than I am. That does make him right and me wrong (or vice versa), just different. But I have yet to find any user of an HTPC who, with all else being equal, would want to have fans in the HTPC if it could run fanless
Its not about being a power user... he's talking about why more cpu punch can be a good thing. If you don't have a fixed function decode block for a new codec and your CPU is too crappy to do it in software, then you need to buy a new CPU and mobo. If bay trail on a stick can't do h.265 you're screwed if you try to play h.265 content, but a broadwell NUC might be able to do it in software (assuming it can't decode in hardware... which it may)
Agree, I ran into that problem years ago especially with Hi10p (10-bit H.264) which requires software decoding. Those low power slow CPUs (like AMD E-350 and Atom 330) just would not be able to decode it smoothly. Broadwell already has H.265 as well as 10-bit H.265 and VP9 support in its latest drivers: http://techreport.com/news/27677/new-intel-igp-dri...
cjs150: Interesting that you bring up the HDPLEX 3 case. I currently use a D54250WYKH, but have one major complaint with it being the power supply. I don't use mine as much for HTPC, but do use it for an audio setup (Schiit Modi2 Uber/Magni2 Uber and JBL LRS305), and the power supply is so noisy. I've found that the PSU leaks noise on the negative side, into the chassis which is not properly isolated or grounded. Connecting the DAC results in noise shooting through the system even before the USB cable makes actual contact with the NUC. I've tried different surge protectors, relocating devices onto different outlets to no avail. The other day I actually ordered the HDPLEX linear power supply to hopefully resolve the issue once and for all.
I wouldn't. The GPU on the low end APU's isn't *that* much better than intel's IGP and the TDP's are too high, which is a big consideration IMO for a device that may spend quite a lot of its time running. I've found my Celeron G1820 system to be superior in every way than the A4 system it replaced, except in casual gaming where they both were basically useless. The CPU gap can absolutely be relevant when you start messing with different decoders as well.
The laptop is a Lenovo Z50, with Kaveri's A10-7300. With default settings, I haven't found a game which is not playable yet. And it costed me nearly half the NUC in this article ($400). Regarding which HTPC to buy, I was looking into Zotac's: something to stash behind the TV, away from view. I agree with you that the savings on low-end AMD APU's are not worth it: the A10 is already dirt cheap.
I just recently bought the Z50-75, lovely machine for the price. 19W CPU in a 15.6" chassis is great for low fan speed and cool operation, even when it's turbo'd up at 3.2GHz. I don't rate it much for games though as it is not powerful enough to drive 1080p without dialling back the quality settings.
owan et al: I have owned AMD machines before, and will probably do so again in future. The problem is TDP, they run too hot. In my main HTPC I run an i7-3770T (45w TDP). More than sufficient power for transcoding. When I built that machine, AMD had nothing even close. The problem with going fanless is heat, and AMD are way behind on this.
HTPC use is very personal. I do not want to go 3D and 4K is currently unnecessary. But it may be that h.265 codec is too CPU intensive for what I have. If so then I will build new machines - but as that will probably be several generations of CPU in future, it is not a problem (and when it is, it will be fun to build!)
cjs150: try amd 5350 APU. i run it without fan, it is a 25W TDP SOC (so all the IO memory controllers on build on the processor with Radeon HD 8400 ).
i too find this review lacking to say the least. i build ultra small factor PCs for fun, and i have yet to find one that beats AMD's offering for general windows use in a ultra tiny factor.
the only three issues with AMD solutions is 1. driver under linux are not that great, but it is getting better. 2. smallest form factor is ITX, which is still too big ESPECIALLY consider 5350 is a SOC. 3. stock cooler sucks. it has the worst oem cooler i see in my entire life.
hate to tell you, but the 5350 is NOT an SoC. It is just a low TDP CPU, because the memory is still external. the memory needs to be in the chip in order for it to be considered a SoC. an integrated memory controller has been standard from 7 years, that doesnt make the chip a SoC. And ITX isnt too big. you can build mac mini type systems in that size. anything small is proprietary, and OEM only. see the NUC above. you cant by a motherboard for that.
the name "SoC" means a number of things, i suppose you could say it is not SoC by your standards but many website (Anandtech, the one you are commenting on, says "...Athlon 5350, a quad core SoC"), similarly, if you define SoC as something that must have on board memory by design, then you can pretty much rule out all the snapdragon processors since they don't have on board memory. So i would like to believe your definition is flawed, as so will most people.
secondary, you are dead wrong about it is just a low TDP CPU. go research the 5350 Spec, one thing it stands out is that not only does it have memory controller, but it also feature a video controller , TPM, PCIe lans, Sata port, VGA output, USB3 and USB2, and PS/2 all on the CPU. the thing about SoC is that it is a System on Chip (minus other stuff like storage, ram, power...etc). it has all the I/O (south bridge), and memory controller (North bridge) all build in one die. this is more similar to cell phone processor than traditional computers. this allows M/B to pretty much just bring out pinouts.
i suggest you to know your subject before posting. this is anandtech and i do expect user to have some basic knowledge in the comment section.
TheinsanegamerN -- NO Processors have all the memory built in -- The most memory you can get is on Crystalwell, but thats still cache. In phones you get PoP which means Package on Package, meaning a SoC underneath and then a regular memory chip on top.
A CPU is generally considered a SoC when it requires no north bridge or south bridge, ie it has memory controller, pcie controller, usb, sata, GPU, etc.
That AMD 5350 APU still has a weak CPU. Also its 25W thus it should not be run without fan. That's why the stock cooler has a fan. And due to that weak CPU, it has problems with higher resolution videos: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_athlon_53... quotes
"We also tested Ultra HD video acceleration. Above the 4K resolution Elysium Trailer, here we have an MP4 H.264 file and you can see that the CPU load is 52% with one core topping out performance. Unfortunately Ultra HD videoplayback resulted into stuttering. For both content we have additional shaders enabled like image sharpening and darkened black levels.
The reason why we noticed stuttering seems to be that the trailer is not DXVA encoded. meaning of you where to RAW decode video streams over the CPU, it would not be powerful enough. The GPU at DXVA will take care of you on that here though."
I must be the only person who is still using an Atom 330 from god-knows-how-many-years-ago. It's slow and it sucks.
But with a Broadcom Crystal HD, it does *everything* I have asked of it, which is maintain my library and playback movies. One day I will upgrade... full-fledged Windows Tablets have now hit the $100 price point, you would think I could get a full blown Atom powered HTPC for half that, right? As it doesn't include a screen? Hahaha. Wrong.
Yeah - I just bought a Winbook 10" tablet for $149 at Microcenter. Specs: 10" IPS screen, 32GB "SSD", 2GM RAM, Win 8.1., USB and mini HDMI port. Runs movies great, and great for internet browsing, runs my programming environment, and can even run Minecraft (with optifine). I have both an Android tablet (with high density display) and an iPad4, and I can't really say the display on the Winbook as any worse - pixel size is fine. I ended up selling my Android tablet, and would sell my iPad if the rest of the family would let me. This $149 tablet blows them both away. It could easily be an HTPC with a blue tooth keyboard and mouse. It's doesn't compare to a Core i5 in speed, but it's fast enough.
For an HTPC which also would be used for light gaming, then I believe an AMD A8-7600 or the Carrizo version, in a passively cooled case is better than these Intel offerings. Mainly from a cost and size standpoint, as the Intel system would need a graphics card. For just movie/TV kind of usage then I believe the Intel offering handles the 23.976 better than AMD.
In my experience, yes and no, enough power to play videos but hardly enough umph to do anything else. I tested an A4 5000, A6 1450, A8 5545M, A10 5750M and A10 7300, the A10's run hot but has a good enough GPU for low-mid range gaming and the lower end AMD's get beat out by Celeron N28** and Pentium N3530 and even the A8 gets beat out by i3's.
The only downside of AMD htpc's is obviously higher power consumption. It will simply need more cooling. That may be negligible to you if a near silent fan in a quality case with proper ventilation is part of your build.
I personally use a passive cooled shuttle j1900-based htpc. It has no moving parts, not even a fan. That was important to me because my TV room is dead silent... and I paid dearly for a clean amp to have no speaker hiss so having no fan noise is priceless.
People with a projector or less demanding requirements should save their money and just build an inexpensive AMD htpc.
Heck no, used to have AMD E-350 and that sucked. Tried the older Atom 330 also but not well also. The problem was Hi10p which uses software decoding (not supported by hardware). Then switched to using my ancient LGA775 which was collecting dust. Was microATX casing thus certainly quite big but can always hide them in some corner. Only problem was dust accumulation due to the fans (have clean the machine once a while). That's the main problem with fans...
Used an old Core 2 Duo E7600 and runs perfectly everything including those that do not use hardware acceleration. Have tried H.265 also (only supported by software decoding on my hardware) and managed to play them up 1080p 30fps with the Lentoid HEVC decoder (possibly the fastest decoder around but does have a compatibility issues with a few files, which I can fallback to VLC Player). Perhaps time for a change, and with H.265 looming around the corner, CPU power could be still relevant after all. If there is a new CPU can beat this old E7600 performance without using fans then I've found the replacement...
My experience is that AMD is better if you are using the HTPC for WMC as well as other things. When I switched from an AMD E450 setup to an i5 setup I lost the abilibity to watch stuff at 1.5 speed. My AMD setup fast-forwarded with sound much, much better than the Intel setup does. The Intel setup is better in every other way, but I really miss watching some games at 1.5X. I like to do that when I don't have the time to watch it at normal speed, or I already know the outcome. The AMD setup allowed me to watch hockey games at 1.5X with sound and no choppiness, the Intel setup is not smooth at all.
Depends on whether AMD can do perfect 23.976 fps for NTSC stuff. Intel graphics can. Generally, it is safer to use Intel for HTPC's (both Windows and Linux) than AMD.
Sorry I know I'm a bit late here, but If you want to pass-through DTS HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD Master Audio through HDMI to an amp/receiver ... then forget about AMD, I've yet to see anyone get it to work... Unfortunately it only seems to work on Intel :(
Of course I only found this out after buying multiple AMD systems for this purpose... believing that they wouldn't say something IS supported in the marketing material when it ISN'T... but while standard 5.1 DTS or Dolby Digital works fine, DTS HD and TrueHD won't pass-through to the receiver.
If anyone has found a way to get it to work, I'd LOVE to hear about it ;)
A good solution is arriving in around 90 days in the form of the AMD Carrizo and Carrizo-L (10w to 35w) APUs with upgraded Excavator cores, next gen full HSA GPU and hardware encode/decode of h.265 4k video. They will be available in everything from laptops to all-in-ones and in micro/pico/ITX systems.
Anandtech had a preview at CES 2015:
"One of the features of Carrizo is full support for H.265 decoding, and as an example of why this is needed they had an Intel system running next to the Carrizo system attempting to playback a 4K H.265 video. While the AMD system was easily able to handle the task without dropping any frames, the Intel system was decoding at what appeared to be single digit frame rates. The 4K content was essentially unwatchable on Intel."
That Core i3 was of the older generation (not Broadwell), and of course would be less powerful to perform software decoding for 4K video. If they had used a Core i7 quad core then should be able to playback 4K video smoothly even through software decoding. Also does not mention if Carrizo can support VP8 or 10-bit H.265/HEVC either...
Additionally Intel Broadwell and even Haswell already have a hybrid H.265/HEVC decoder (uses both CPU and GPU) in the latest drivers: http://techreport.com/news/27677/new-intel-igp-dri... Besides H.265/HEVC, it also supports VP9 codec (used by Google TV). Futhermore it can also support 10-bit H.265/HEVC format besides the normal 8-bit H.265/HEVC. Wished that it would also support the old 10-bit H.264 (also known as Hi10p) as well...
Why do people rip blu ray to NAS? Is it legal? I don't understand why people store so many movies on their PC. Can you watch that much? Also, is it even legal?
Why do we rip movies? so that way if something happens to the disk, i still have my movie, and I dont need to find the dvd and put it into the player to watch a movie, i can just double click it. And of course it is legal. Im making a backup of my own copy, and im not sharing it.
I rip movies (redbox rentals) so I can watch it at a convenient time, on whatever device I want. It's rare I watch anything more than once. Lately I've been renting more movies on demand, though, as long as the price is reasonable
I have one of the Haswell Celeron NUCs, DN2820FYKH, and it has plenty of power for HTPC use. Also, if you want to hide it away, it comes with a VESA mount adapter to bolt to the back of the monitor. Nice if your monitor mount has the space or if your monitor isn't wall mounted.
I'm really disappointed that none of the NUCs have dual ethernet ports on them. I really want to use NUCs as servers for personal use, but really don't like USB ethernet dongles.
This review states twice that the first NUCs had Sandy Bridge CPUs. This is not correct. The very first NUCs were the DC33217IYE and DC33217BY. Both of these used the Core i3-3217U, which is an Ivy Bridge CPU. Intel never offered a Sandy Bridge-based NUC.
Gallery images have very bad underexposure problems. Please pay attention next time: you have to compensate exposure if you have too white background....
It looks like all Intel did is take an i5 and underclock it down to about half the normal speed. I have an i3 4330 and it runs at 3.5 ghz and has the 4600 graphics and 4 megs of Cache. It runs great. I did turn the power supply that sits above the CPU so it pulls hot air out of the case. I run everything at stock speed with the CPU cooler Intel sold with the retail CPU package. No reason to purchase anything new.
I liked the way you can select several similar comparisons to compare the review item to. However, I would compare it to a couple i3 processors that might typically be sold for Mini-ITX systems.
Does the Broadwell NUC still have the same issue with dropping bitstreaming when turning home theater devices (e.g. TV, AVR, etc.) off and then back on? I ended up getting rid of my Haswell NUC, because I needed something that was more reliable. Amusingly enough, my passively-cooled i3-3225 HTPC works great. It also lacks the weird issue where putting PLEX in the start-up folder on the NUC causes PLEX to improperly connect to the server -- you'd end up seeing the different libraries, but you could never browse them.
My guess is a combination of lack of memory bandwidth and power restrictions. HD 4600 just barely maxes out 1600MHz memory, and 1866 is barely enough for HD 5500. HD 5200, the previous iris pro, had 72 GB/s of bandwidth, and still had bandwidth issues. 1866 ddr3 is nowhere near fast enough. The second thing is power consumption. HD 4600 in the i5 4300m pulls about 19 watts of power. now, hd 6000 has far more cores, 48 vs 20, which is still too much for 14nm to run on that little power. since the entire TDP is only 15 watt for that cpu, the GPU is both bandwidth restricted and power restricted.
I love my NUC, barely 6W idling and 18W under load, surfs the net great, plays Netflix and YT videos great, plays my Steam games via in-home streaming perfectly.
Agreed. We initially bought a D34010WYKH1 (i3) at work as a test device last summer to see how well they worked. A couple of our employees have been using them for more than 6 months now.
I ended up buying a D54250WYKH1 (i5) for myself to use at home as a media PC and other uses. I'm very happy with it, but I am slightly disappointed that they didn't go with full HDMI for the Broadwell refresh.
VP9 hybrid acceleration is enabled in recent Intel Broadwell drivers, and apparently Chrome 41+ (currently in Beta) has the ability to hook into Intel's VP9 decoder.
In future Broadwell tests, can you check Youtube power consumption with Chrome 41+? Chrome defaults to VP9 on so most Youtube videos nowadays, so this is an important and unexplored area for mobile power usage.
I don't much of a performance difference between the "mainstream" and the "enthusiast" versions used in this article (aside for artificial SSD benchmarks). Of course, the price difference between the configurations is only $66.
Really the biggest performance difference among all of the candidates is between the one machine that has a spinning hard disk and all of the rest. Worth knowing none-the-less.
No. It is a matter of power. Thunderbolt standard specifies that every port supply 10 W of DC power. Also, the controller itself is very high bandwidth and requires > 2 W. It adds up on a system striving to be low power and fanless.
I got the old i5-4200U , mounted on industrial PC chassis (half inch thick aluminum side panel/radiator). It gets extremely hot, when operating at max CPU load (and ~0 GPU load). Don't hold you breath for power efficiency and productivity. Also that platform lacks any overclocking settings in BIOS or OS tools and is frustratingly painful to undervolt.
The "enthusiast" version has 10-10-10-32 1866Mhz memory, while the "mainstream" version has 9-9-9-27 1600Mhz memory. So the difference in memory could account for at most a 17% difference in performance between the two versions (1866Mhz/1600Mhz). But the Cinebench R15 3D rendering multi-threaded benchmark shows the "enthusiast" version to be 34% faster, and the 7-Zip LZMA Decompression benchmark makes the "enthusiast" version 30% faster.
The only other difference between the two versions is the choice of SSD. This could in principle explain the differences listed above, but that would mean that the two benchmarks cited are largely disk I/O bound since we see the effect even with relatively fast disk drives (SSD rather than mechanical) and a relatively slow CPU (1.6 Ghz dual core). I thought those benchmarks were intended to measure computational throughput, and thus should not be affected by the storage subsystem at all. Am I wrong?
If you're looking for a pur CPU benchmark that doesn't rely on other parts of teh system then you'll end up with synthetics that everyone complains about because they don't reflect the real world. Yes, Archive applications rely very heavily on I/O. If you want to use them for CPU benchmarks you should set up RAM Disks for the storage. On a similar note, one of my pet peeves is using browser benchmarks to compare CPUs. Browser benchmarks measure the performance of the browser and it''s engine(s). They do very little good as a CPU comparison tool. Sunspider for instance can score wildly different on the exact same system just by using a different browser.
I am glad that Anandtech is evaluating 4K playback on these devices. Regular 1080p HTPCs seem to have reached a plateau in the past few years. I was confused by the evaluation of 4K scaled to 1080p. Are the new LAV filters that fix the scaling issues incorporated into the latest MPC-HC? Will LAV be taking advantage of the partially in-hardware 4K decoding via DXVA on Intel QuickSync soon? Does the HDMI output of this device support HDMI 2.0, enabling 4K/60p/4:4:4 color bit-depth? If not, does the DisplayPort support this bitrate? Will this device support HDCP 2.2 for protected 4K bluray output? I bought an ASUS chromebox ($179 version) and have been successfully using it with my 4K monitor (Monoprice model) and 4K TV (Samsung). It renders the desktop in 4K30Hz, not at 60Hz. It is too slow/there is not appropriate software in linux to handle 4K videos without occasionally dropping frames, so I was going to upgrade to the NUC to handle this.
I'm doing quite well on a small form factor system at the moment, using an i7-4790T (45W 2.7ghz quad-core, hyper-threading, 3.9ghz turbo and HD4600 graphics) in an Akasa Euler case. Only downside has been that I had to trade in the mSATA hard drive I was using for a regular 2.5" SSD, as the mSATA just got too hot in such a confined, passively cooled space.
I am shocked what you guys use as a HTPC. And what good are these SSDs in a HTPC???
I use a rooted Amazon Fire TV as my HTPC (purchased for € 49 at the introductory rate for Prime customers). Thus far, it has handled everything I've thrown at it. By the time I need H.265 and 4K, I imagine another ARM box priced below a hundred bucks will be around.
To me, this NUC is a desktop replacement (for non-gamers) or a small-server replacement.
I have no idea why somebody is even bothering to try AMD - they are horrible.
I am in market for small and lightweight PCs, and have used AMD once - it ate twice the current of NUC yet twice slower. So 1/4 performance per power. Oh and it wasn't that cheaper too.
Well I would just compare this to at least a desktop Pentium, i3,i5, i7 to see what the difference is. Is this weak slow running processor as good as say an i3 4330 that runs at 3.5 Ghz, with 4 Megs of Cache, and HD 4600 IGP?
I've just bought a nuc5i5ryh and the Corsair ram you mention, the cmsx8gx3m2b1866c10. However, all I'm getting are the three bleeps to say the ram is not recognized. It's probably getting returned for some 1600 sticks. stu
"The gaming benchmarks, when considered as a showdown between the HD Graphics 5500 and HD Graphics 6000, is is a complete walkover for the former in the Core i7-5500U."
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cjs150 - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
I am a confirmed HTPC user, I have 2 in the house. One, more powerful, is used to rip Blu rays down to NAS, (plus play, Netflix/Amazon Prime, Web browsing) the other is used simply to play movies, browising, word processing and "Old" gaming - I am a big fan of Total War, old versions.Total silent operation is a must. I do not care how quiet the fan is, in soft parts of movie playback I can hear it.
The old i3 NUC, in a fanless case, makes for an excellent low power HPTC. A Broadwell U will be as good.
My problem is then I am not sure even that power is necessary for most HTPC use where simply streaming from NAS or similar external disk. For the next HTPC I am looking forward to reviews of Intels Bay Tree on a stick, so small it could be stuck behind my AV receiver
edzieba - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Having 'too much' power for an HTPC has two main advantages:1) Interface speed. This is both for actual rendering of the interface bells & whistles, and for populating large directories when browsing.
2) CODEC futureproofing. H.265 is on the horizon, and Hi10p H.264 has some very nice benefits in bitrate reduction (or better perceptual quality at the same bitrate), but low power hardware that relies on fixed-function decoder blocks will be left high and dry. Even if they DO have a FFB for a desired CODEC, it may not be sufficient to playback all files (e.g. the number of Level 4.0 h.264 decoders that can't handle full-bitrate Blu Ray streams).
Kutark - Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - link
I'm not sure you realize how little processing power is actually used for rendering. Even now on an old dual core pentium my htpc barely hits 10% utilization on one core while watching h.264 stuff at 1080p. My second htpc which has a ~$55 amd 5xxx series card does most of it via the video card, which also is nowhere even close to being taxed.This setup is WWWAAAYYYY past the needs of any kind of streaming/media/htpc. At these price ranges you can actually build a pretty decent desktop with a dedicated graphics card. Yes, it won't be this small, but you will actually have real graphics performance (i.e. a gtx 960 or r9 280, etc).
yankeeDDL - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Wouldn't you consider an AMD-based system a better option for an HTPC? Asking as I am considering one.I recently bought an AMD-based laptop and I am extremely pleased with it as I find it much more effective for casual gaming and, frankly, the CPU performance gap with Intel is "irrelevant" for HTPC use (at least the one I have in mind).
cjs150 - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
YankeeDDL: Short answer is yes, AMD laptop in many cases is a much better HTPC (unless it has a fan!)But will it look good with the rest of your AV kit? My main HTPC is in a HDPLEX 3 case, which looks great (but pricey), my second HTPC is an i3 NUC in a Tranquil fanless case - again fits right into the AV style.
I guess it depends on what you want. Edzieba is clearly much more of a power user of an HTPC than I am. That does make him right and me wrong (or vice versa), just different. But I have yet to find any user of an HTPC who, with all else being equal, would want to have fans in the HTPC if it could run fanless
Flunk - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
So you're saying an AMD laptop isn't a better HTPC then? Qualifying it with "unless it has a fan" kinda negates the possibility entirely.
BlueBlazer - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
Fans have one big problem, dust accumulation and can lead to clogging (in the cooling vents) which can cause overheating.owan - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Its not about being a power user... he's talking about why more cpu punch can be a good thing. If you don't have a fixed function decode block for a new codec and your CPU is too crappy to do it in software, then you need to buy a new CPU and mobo. If bay trail on a stick can't do h.265 you're screwed if you try to play h.265 content, but a broadwell NUC might be able to do it in software (assuming it can't decode in hardware... which it may)BlueBlazer - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
Agree, I ran into that problem years ago especially with Hi10p (10-bit H.264) which requires software decoding. Those low power slow CPUs (like AMD E-350 and Atom 330) just would not be able to decode it smoothly. Broadwell already has H.265 as well as 10-bit H.265 and VP9 support in its latest drivers: http://techreport.com/news/27677/new-intel-igp-dri...rmullns08 - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
cjs150: Interesting that you bring up the HDPLEX 3 case. I currently use a D54250WYKH, but have one major complaint with it being the power supply. I don't use mine as much for HTPC, but do use it for an audio setup (Schiit Modi2 Uber/Magni2 Uber and JBL LRS305), and the power supply is so noisy. I've found that the PSU leaks noise on the negative side, into the chassis which is not properly isolated or grounded. Connecting the DAC results in noise shooting through the system even before the USB cable makes actual contact with the NUC. I've tried different surge protectors, relocating devices onto different outlets to no avail. The other day I actually ordered the HDPLEX linear power supply to hopefully resolve the issue once and for all.owan - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
I wouldn't. The GPU on the low end APU's isn't *that* much better than intel's IGP and the TDP's are too high, which is a big consideration IMO for a device that may spend quite a lot of its time running. I've found my Celeron G1820 system to be superior in every way than the A4 system it replaced, except in casual gaming where they both were basically useless. The CPU gap can absolutely be relevant when you start messing with different decoders as well.yankeeDDL - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
The laptop is a Lenovo Z50, with Kaveri's A10-7300. With default settings, I haven't found a game which is not playable yet. And it costed me nearly half the NUC in this article ($400).Regarding which HTPC to buy, I was looking into Zotac's: something to stash behind the TV, away from view.
I agree with you that the savings on low-end AMD APU's are not worth it: the A10 is already dirt cheap.
jimjamjamie - Monday, February 23, 2015 - link
I just recently bought the Z50-75, lovely machine for the price. 19W CPU in a 15.6" chassis is great for low fan speed and cool operation, even when it's turbo'd up at 3.2GHz. I don't rate it much for games though as it is not powerful enough to drive 1080p without dialling back the quality settings.cjs150 - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
owan et al: I have owned AMD machines before, and will probably do so again in future. The problem is TDP, they run too hot. In my main HTPC I run an i7-3770T (45w TDP). More than sufficient power for transcoding. When I built that machine, AMD had nothing even close. The problem with going fanless is heat, and AMD are way behind on this.HTPC use is very personal. I do not want to go 3D and 4K is currently unnecessary. But it may be that h.265 codec is too CPU intensive for what I have. If so then I will build new machines - but as that will probably be several generations of CPU in future, it is not a problem (and when it is, it will be fun to build!)
yankeeDDL - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
To each its own. It's good to have choices :)seanleeforever - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
cjs150: try amd 5350 APU. i run it without fan, it is a 25W TDP SOC (so all the IO memory controllers on build on the processor with Radeon HD 8400 ).i too find this review lacking to say the least. i build ultra small factor PCs for fun, and i have yet to find one that beats AMD's offering for general windows use in a ultra tiny factor.
the only three issues with AMD solutions is
1. driver under linux are not that great, but it is getting better.
2. smallest form factor is ITX, which is still too big ESPECIALLY consider 5350 is a SOC.
3. stock cooler sucks. it has the worst oem cooler i see in my entire life.
TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
hate to tell you, but the 5350 is NOT an SoC. It is just a low TDP CPU, because the memory is still external. the memory needs to be in the chip in order for it to be considered a SoC. an integrated memory controller has been standard from 7 years, that doesnt make the chip a SoC.And ITX isnt too big. you can build mac mini type systems in that size. anything small is proprietary, and OEM only. see the NUC above. you cant by a motherboard for that.
seanleeforever - Monday, February 23, 2015 - link
the name "SoC" means a number of things, i suppose you could say it is not SoC by your standards but many website (Anandtech, the one you are commenting on, says "...Athlon 5350, a quad core SoC"), similarly, if you define SoC as something that must have on board memory by design, then you can pretty much rule out all the snapdragon processors since they don't have on board memory. So i would like to believe your definition is flawed, as so will most people.secondary, you are dead wrong about it is just a low TDP CPU. go research the 5350 Spec, one thing it stands out is that not only does it have memory controller, but it also feature a video controller , TPM, PCIe lans, Sata port, VGA output, USB3 and USB2, and PS/2 all on the CPU. the thing about SoC is that it is a System on Chip (minus other stuff like storage, ram, power...etc). it has all the I/O (south bridge), and memory controller (North bridge) all build in one die. this is more similar to cell phone processor than traditional computers. this allows M/B to pretty much just bring out pinouts.
i suggest you to know your subject before posting. this is anandtech and i do expect user to have some basic knowledge in the comment section.
extide - Monday, February 23, 2015 - link
TheinsanegamerN -- NO Processors have all the memory built in -- The most memory you can get is on Crystalwell, but thats still cache. In phones you get PoP which means Package on Package, meaning a SoC underneath and then a regular memory chip on top.A CPU is generally considered a SoC when it requires no north bridge or south bridge, ie it has memory controller, pcie controller, usb, sata, GPU, etc.
BlueBlazer - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
That AMD 5350 APU still has a weak CPU. Also its 25W thus it should not be run without fan. That's why the stock cooler has a fan. And due to that weak CPU, it has problems with higher resolution videos: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_athlon_53... quotes"We also tested Ultra HD video acceleration. Above the 4K resolution Elysium Trailer, here we have an MP4 H.264 file and you can see that the CPU load is 52% with one core topping out performance. Unfortunately Ultra HD videoplayback resulted into stuttering. For both content we have additional shaders enabled like image sharpening and darkened black levels.
The reason why we noticed stuttering seems to be that the trailer is not DXVA encoded. meaning of you where to RAW decode video streams over the CPU, it would not be powerful enough. The GPU at DXVA will take care of you on that here though."
seanleeforever - Monday, February 23, 2015 - link
true, i suppose if your requirement is to play 4K UHD video no matter what encoding used, then you really have to step up to a faster processor.duploxxx - Monday, February 23, 2015 - link
fixed with carrizo which will launch pritty soon.StevoLincolnite - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
I must be the only person who is still using an Atom 330 from god-knows-how-many-years-ago.It's slow and it sucks.
But with a Broadcom Crystal HD, it does *everything* I have asked of it, which is maintain my library and playback movies.
One day I will upgrade... full-fledged Windows Tablets have now hit the $100 price point, you would think I could get a full blown Atom powered HTPC for half that, right? As it doesn't include a screen? Hahaha. Wrong.
kmmatney - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Yeah - I just bought a Winbook 10" tablet for $149 at Microcenter. Specs: 10" IPS screen, 32GB "SSD", 2GM RAM, Win 8.1., USB and mini HDMI port. Runs movies great, and great for internet browsing, runs my programming environment, and can even run Minecraft (with optifine). I have both an Android tablet (with high density display) and an iPad4, and I can't really say the display on the Winbook as any worse - pixel size is fine. I ended up selling my Android tablet, and would sell my iPad if the rest of the family would let me. This $149 tablet blows them both away. It could easily be an HTPC with a blue tooth keyboard and mouse. It's doesn't compare to a Core i5 in speed, but it's fast enough.Antronman - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
A $728 dollar build is easily going to fit the A10-7850kThe only advantage the NUC poses is power draw and operation volume.
Gadgety - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
For an HTPC which also would be used for light gaming, then I believe an AMD A8-7600 or the Carrizo version, in a passively cooled case is better than these Intel offerings. Mainly from a cost and size standpoint, as the Intel system would need a graphics card. For just movie/TV kind of usage then I believe the Intel offering handles the 23.976 better than AMD.yankeeDDL - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Carrizo will have full H.265 support in hardware. Usually that makes just the world of difference in terms of efficiency.BlueBlazer - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
But for Carrizo, does not mention support for VP9 (used by Google TV) or 10-bit H.265.Teknobug - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
In my experience, yes and no, enough power to play videos but hardly enough umph to do anything else. I tested an A4 5000, A6 1450, A8 5545M, A10 5750M and A10 7300, the A10's run hot but has a good enough GPU for low-mid range gaming and the lower end AMD's get beat out by Celeron N28** and Pentium N3530 and even the A8 gets beat out by i3's.Samus - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
The only downside of AMD htpc's is obviously higher power consumption. It will simply need more cooling. That may be negligible to you if a near silent fan in a quality case with proper ventilation is part of your build.I personally use a passive cooled shuttle j1900-based htpc. It has no moving parts, not even a fan. That was important to me because my TV room is dead silent... and I paid dearly for a clean amp to have no speaker hiss so having no fan noise is priceless.
People with a projector or less demanding requirements should save their money and just build an inexpensive AMD htpc.
BlueBlazer - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
Heck no, used to have AMD E-350 and that sucked. Tried the older Atom 330 also but not well also. The problem was Hi10p which uses software decoding (not supported by hardware). Then switched to using my ancient LGA775 which was collecting dust. Was microATX casing thus certainly quite big but can always hide them in some corner. Only problem was dust accumulation due to the fans (have clean the machine once a while). That's the main problem with fans...Used an old Core 2 Duo E7600 and runs perfectly everything including those that do not use hardware acceleration. Have tried H.265 also (only supported by software decoding on my hardware) and managed to play them up 1080p 30fps with the Lentoid HEVC decoder (possibly the fastest decoder around but does have a compatibility issues with a few files, which I can fallback to VLC Player). Perhaps time for a change, and with H.265 looming around the corner, CPU power could be still relevant after all. If there is a new CPU can beat this old E7600 performance without using fans then I've found the replacement...
BPB - Wednesday, February 25, 2015 - link
My experience is that AMD is better if you are using the HTPC for WMC as well as other things. When I switched from an AMD E450 setup to an i5 setup I lost the abilibity to watch stuff at 1.5 speed. My AMD setup fast-forwarded with sound much, much better than the Intel setup does. The Intel setup is better in every other way, but I really miss watching some games at 1.5X. I like to do that when I don't have the time to watch it at normal speed, or I already know the outcome. The AMD setup allowed me to watch hockey games at 1.5X with sound and no choppiness, the Intel setup is not smooth at all.valnar - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
Depends on whether AMD can do perfect 23.976 fps for NTSC stuff. Intel graphics can. Generally, it is safer to use Intel for HTPC's (both Windows and Linux) than AMD.iFX.64 - Saturday, June 20, 2015 - link
Sorry I know I'm a bit late here, but If you want to pass-through DTS HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD Master Audio through HDMI to an amp/receiver ... then forget about AMD, I've yet to see anyone get it to work... Unfortunately it only seems to work on Intel :(Of course I only found this out after buying multiple AMD systems for this purpose... believing that they wouldn't say something IS supported in the marketing material when it ISN'T... but while standard 5.1 DTS or Dolby Digital works fine, DTS HD and TrueHD won't pass-through to the receiver.
If anyone has found a way to get it to work, I'd LOVE to hear about it ;)
Veritex - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
A good solution is arriving in around 90 days in the form of the AMD Carrizo and Carrizo-L (10w to 35w) APUs with upgraded Excavator cores, next gen full HSA GPU and hardware encode/decode of h.265 4k video. They will be available in everything from laptops to all-in-ones and in micro/pico/ITX systems.Anandtech had a preview at CES 2015:
"One of the features of Carrizo is full support for H.265 decoding, and as an example of why this is needed they had an Intel system running next to the Carrizo system attempting to playback a 4K H.265 video. While the AMD system was easily able to handle the task without dropping any frames, the Intel system was decoding at what appeared to be single digit frame rates. The 4K content was essentially unwatchable on Intel."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8855/amd-demonstrate...
BlueBlazer - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
That Core i3 was of the older generation (not Broadwell), and of course would be less powerful to perform software decoding for 4K video. If they had used a Core i7 quad core then should be able to playback 4K video smoothly even through software decoding. Also does not mention if Carrizo can support VP8 or 10-bit H.265/HEVC either...Additionally Intel Broadwell and even Haswell already have a hybrid H.265/HEVC decoder (uses both CPU and GPU) in the latest drivers: http://techreport.com/news/27677/new-intel-igp-dri... Besides H.265/HEVC, it also supports VP9 codec (used by Google TV). Futhermore it can also support 10-bit H.265/HEVC format besides the normal 8-bit H.265/HEVC. Wished that it would also support the old 10-bit H.264 (also known as Hi10p) as well...
BlueBlazer - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
Errata: VP9 in the first paragraph and not VP8..."Also does not mention if Carrizo can support VP8 or 10-bit H.265/HEVC either..."
Vinny DePaul - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
Why do people rip blu ray to NAS? Is it legal? I don't understand why people store so many movies on their PC. Can you watch that much? Also, is it even legal?TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
Why do we rip movies? so that way if something happens to the disk, i still have my movie, and I dont need to find the dvd and put it into the player to watch a movie, i can just double click it.And of course it is legal. Im making a backup of my own copy, and im not sharing it.
kmmatney - Sunday, February 22, 2015 - link
I rip movies (redbox rentals) so I can watch it at a convenient time, on whatever device I want. It's rare I watch anything more than once. Lately I've been renting more movies on demand, though, as long as the price is reasonableJaybus - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
I have one of the Haswell Celeron NUCs, DN2820FYKH, and it has plenty of power for HTPC use. Also, if you want to hide it away, it comes with a VESA mount adapter to bolt to the back of the monitor. Nice if your monitor mount has the space or if your monitor isn't wall mounted.GTVic - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
ChromeCast gets very hot. Not sure the technology is there for a computer on a stick.Shadowmaster625 - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Why are there no AMD APUs on these graphs? Some nvidia tablet chip data would seem relevant also. Thinks are looking rather dire for intel.BlueBlazer - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
Can find those benchmarks here http://www.anandtech.com/show/8119/amd-launches-mo... for comparison. And that's AMD's current top mobile SKU although it has a rather high 35W TDP.mfenn - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
The word should be envelope not envelop on the last page.vsilgalis - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
I'm really disappointed that none of the NUCs have dual ethernet ports on them. I really want to use NUCs as servers for personal use, but really don't like USB ethernet dongles.dakishimesan - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
There are several do it yourself solutions that come very close to the functionality you want:http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/Mini-IT...
https://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/embed...
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/ato...
bobbozzo - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
I've heard that Intel makes a mini-PCIe gigE card; a hole can be cut the the back of some of the NUC cases for the RJ45 port.dakishimesan - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
http://www.amazon.com/Syba-Gigabit-Ethernet-Contro...Realtec
Brian_R170 - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
This review states twice that the first NUCs had Sandy Bridge CPUs. This is not correct. The very first NUCs were the DC33217IYE and DC33217BY. Both of these used the Core i3-3217U, which is an Ivy Bridge CPU. Intel never offered a Sandy Bridge-based NUC.extide - Monday, February 23, 2015 - link
No, the article is correct. 1st gen NUC was DCCP847DYE -- which was Celeron 847 -- Sandy Bridge based Celeron.Paapaa125 - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Gallery images have very bad underexposure problems. Please pay attention next time: you have to compensate exposure if you have too white background....piasabird - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
It looks like all Intel did is take an i5 and underclock it down to about half the normal speed. I have an i3 4330 and it runs at 3.5 ghz and has the 4600 graphics and 4 megs of Cache. It runs great. I did turn the power supply that sits above the CPU so it pulls hot air out of the case. I run everything at stock speed with the CPU cooler Intel sold with the retail CPU package. No reason to purchase anything new.piasabird - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
I liked the way you can select several similar comparisons to compare the review item to. However, I would compare it to a couple i3 processors that might typically be sold for Mini-ITX systems.Aikouka - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Does the Broadwell NUC still have the same issue with dropping bitstreaming when turning home theater devices (e.g. TV, AVR, etc.) off and then back on? I ended up getting rid of my Haswell NUC, because I needed something that was more reliable. Amusingly enough, my passively-cooled i3-3225 HTPC works great. It also lacks the weird issue where putting PLEX in the start-up folder on the NUC causes PLEX to improperly connect to the server -- you'd end up seeing the different libraries, but you could never browse them.CSMR - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Why isn't the HD6000 graphics with 48EUs dominating the HD5500 graphics with only 24EUs?TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
My guess is a combination of lack of memory bandwidth and power restrictions. HD 4600 just barely maxes out 1600MHz memory, and 1866 is barely enough for HD 5500. HD 5200, the previous iris pro, had 72 GB/s of bandwidth, and still had bandwidth issues. 1866 ddr3 is nowhere near fast enough.The second thing is power consumption. HD 4600 in the i5 4300m pulls about 19 watts of power. now, hd 6000 has far more cores, 48 vs 20, which is still too much for 14nm to run on that little power. since the entire TDP is only 15 watt for that cpu, the GPU is both bandwidth restricted and power restricted.
vcorem - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
The first NUC was IvyBridge, not SandyBridge.It was released in 2012
romrunning - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
How did the Mainstream setup beat the Enthusiast configuration in the 7-Zip benchmark?!Is that a mistake? Should the labels be switched?
Teknobug - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
I love my NUC, barely 6W idling and 18W under load, surfs the net great, plays Netflix and YT videos great, plays my Steam games via in-home streaming perfectly.smegforbrain - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
Agreed. We initially bought a D34010WYKH1 (i3) at work as a test device last summer to see how well they worked. A couple of our employees have been using them for more than 6 months now.I ended up buying a D54250WYKH1 (i5) for myself to use at home as a media PC and other uses. I'm very happy with it, but I am slightly disappointed that they didn't go with full HDMI for the Broadwell refresh.
mavere - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
VP9 hybrid acceleration is enabled in recent Intel Broadwell drivers, and apparently Chrome 41+ (currently in Beta) has the ability to hook into Intel's VP9 decoder.In future Broadwell tests, can you check Youtube power consumption with Chrome 41+? Chrome defaults to VP9 on so most Youtube videos nowadays, so this is an important and unexplored area for mobile power usage.
TrackSmart - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
I don't much of a performance difference between the "mainstream" and the "enthusiast" versions used in this article (aside for artificial SSD benchmarks). Of course, the price difference between the configurations is only $66.Really the biggest performance difference among all of the candidates is between the one machine that has a spinning hard disk and all of the rest. Worth knowing none-the-less.
Essence_of_War - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Should I be getting the message that intel not want us to use thunderbolt?Jaybus - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
No. It is a matter of power. Thunderbolt standard specifies that every port supply 10 W of DC power. Also, the controller itself is very high bandwidth and requires > 2 W. It adds up on a system striving to be low power and fanless.Samus - Friday, February 20, 2015 - link
Wow Intel has the cleanest uefi bios interface I've ever seen. Shame they don't make motherboards anymore :(A4i - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
I got the old i5-4200U , mounted on industrial PC chassis (half inch thick aluminum side panel/radiator). It gets extremely hot, when operating at max CPU load (and ~0 GPU load). Don't hold you breath for power efficiency and productivity. Also that platform lacks any overclocking settings in BIOS or OS tools and is frustratingly painful to undervolt.KAlmquist - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
A benchmark question:The "enthusiast" version has 10-10-10-32 1866Mhz memory, while the "mainstream" version has 9-9-9-27 1600Mhz memory. So the difference in memory could account for at most a 17% difference in performance between the two versions (1866Mhz/1600Mhz). But the Cinebench R15 3D rendering multi-threaded benchmark shows the "enthusiast" version to be 34% faster, and the 7-Zip LZMA Decompression benchmark makes the "enthusiast" version 30% faster.
The only other difference between the two versions is the choice of SSD. This could in principle explain the differences listed above, but that would mean that the two benchmarks cited are largely disk I/O bound since we see the effect even with relatively fast disk drives (SSD rather than mechanical) and a relatively slow CPU (1.6 Ghz dual core). I thought those benchmarks were intended to measure computational throughput, and thus should not be affected by the storage subsystem at all. Am I wrong?
Kidster3001 - Friday, February 27, 2015 - link
If you're looking for a pur CPU benchmark that doesn't rely on other parts of teh system then you'll end up with synthetics that everyone complains about because they don't reflect the real world.Yes, Archive applications rely very heavily on I/O. If you want to use them for CPU benchmarks you should set up RAM Disks for the storage.
On a similar note, one of my pet peeves is using browser benchmarks to compare CPUs. Browser benchmarks measure the performance of the browser and it''s engine(s). They do very little good as a CPU comparison tool. Sunspider for instance can score wildly different on the exact same system just by using a different browser.
gfieldew - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
Could the FHD model drive a 4K TV/Monitor adequately? I'm not expecting HDMI 2.0 but 60Hz would be good. Thank-you!gfieldew - Saturday, February 21, 2015 - link
Damn, wrong post, please ignore.medi03 - Sunday, February 22, 2015 - link
Lack of AMD APUs in comparison charts is somewhat suspicious, to say the least.mits2k - Monday, February 23, 2015 - link
I am glad that Anandtech is evaluating 4K playback on these devices. Regular 1080p HTPCs seem to have reached a plateau in the past few years.I was confused by the evaluation of 4K scaled to 1080p. Are the new LAV filters that fix the scaling issues incorporated into the latest MPC-HC? Will LAV be taking advantage of the partially in-hardware 4K decoding via DXVA on Intel QuickSync soon? Does the HDMI output of this device support HDMI 2.0, enabling 4K/60p/4:4:4 color bit-depth? If not, does the DisplayPort support this bitrate? Will this device support HDCP 2.2 for protected 4K bluray output?
I bought an ASUS chromebox ($179 version) and have been successfully using it with my 4K monitor (Monoprice model) and 4K TV (Samsung). It renders the desktop in 4K30Hz, not at 60Hz. It is too slow/there is not appropriate software in linux to handle 4K videos without occasionally dropping frames, so I was going to upgrade to the NUC to handle this.
rangerdavid - Monday, February 23, 2015 - link
"The first Sandy Bridge NUC was important for two main reasons - the obvious one being the kickstarting of the UCFF craze."What, no nod to the Mac Mini, circa 2005? (Or even the G4 Cube if you want to geek out with me...)
Kidster3001 - Friday, February 27, 2015 - link
He didn't say NUC was the first but that it kick started the current popularity of the form factor.Haravikk - Wednesday, February 25, 2015 - link
I'm doing quite well on a small form factor system at the moment, using an i7-4790T (45W 2.7ghz quad-core, hyper-threading, 3.9ghz turbo and HD4600 graphics) in an Akasa Euler case. Only downside has been that I had to trade in the mSATA hard drive I was using for a regular 2.5" SSD, as the mSATA just got too hot in such a confined, passively cooled space.jasperjones - Wednesday, February 25, 2015 - link
I am shocked what you guys use as a HTPC. And what good are these SSDs in a HTPC???I use a rooted Amazon Fire TV as my HTPC (purchased for € 49 at the introductory rate for Prime customers). Thus far, it has handled everything I've thrown at it. By the time I need H.265 and 4K, I imagine another ARM box priced below a hundred bucks will be around.
To me, this NUC is a desktop replacement (for non-gamers) or a small-server replacement.
nerd1 - Sunday, March 1, 2015 - link
I have no idea why somebody is even bothering to try AMD - they are horrible.I am in market for small and lightweight PCs, and have used AMD once - it ate twice the current of NUC yet twice slower. So 1/4 performance per power. Oh and it wasn't that cheaper too.
piasabird - Tuesday, March 3, 2015 - link
Well I would just compare this to at least a desktop Pentium, i3,i5, i7 to see what the difference is. Is this weak slow running processor as good as say an i3 4330 that runs at 3.5 Ghz, with 4 Megs of Cache, and HD 4600 IGP?Ceois - Wednesday, March 4, 2015 - link
On the first picture from the BIOS gallery it says CPU Core Temp 51C. Isn't that a little too high for it being idle?stuinthewood - Sunday, June 14, 2015 - link
I've just bought a nuc5i5ryh and the Corsair ram you mention, the cmsx8gx3m2b1866c10. However, all I'm getting are the three bleeps to say the ram is not recognized. It's probably getting returned for some 1600 sticks.stu
mikerh - Monday, December 21, 2015 - link
Who the hell writes these articles."The gaming benchmarks, when considered as a showdown between the HD Graphics 5500 and HD Graphics 6000, is is a complete walkover for the former in the Core i7-5500U."
... what?
microz - Friday, January 1, 2016 - link
Hi, with display port is possible set 120hz? (I have a led with 120hz support)