Out of the box htpc

[Mikevdkooij]

Hello all,

I'm searching for a openelec solution. Which box works out of the box with hdmi sound?

I was thinking About the asrock ion 3D 152.

I'm searching for a htpc with a remote.

Thanks

[crssi]

What about Xtreamer Ultra 2 Deluxe?

My concern is that in the next few months, there will be some better choice about HW...

[chewitt]

if you're concerned that next month something faster and higher-spec will come along you will never upgrade because there is *always* something new in development; that's the nature of technology. Ultra2 works nicely - I have an early dev board which has been no hassles at all.

[stream78m]

The Asrock ION is a great piece of hardware, i have one and its flawless. Dont be too concerned with what is around the corner. This device can do 1080p, and to be honest what more do you need? Until 1080p is superseeded these machines are going to be fine.

The only advice I can give is steer clear of AMD graphics cards. Nvidia is the way to go on linux systems, as the drivers actually work and will offload processing to the grahpics card.

Both the xstreamer and the Asrock have the Nvidia chip.

[crssi]

Well we can expect some haswell solutions I believe, but I can be wrong.
With newer,faster CPU, TDP would be smaller and fanless case is closer to non-custom-mod sollution.

Does Xtreamer Ultra 2 works smooth with Aeon Nox?

Thank you in advance

[stream78m]

It's suppose skins are a personal preference but I do not like Aeon Nox. Seems too heavy to me. What I need is something slick and fast which is what confluence delivers in spades.

If a skin like that is high on your agenda then you might be pushing the boundaries of the ATOM chipset. I have tried it on the ATOM and it works, its not slow, but you can tell there is a noticable difference between that and confluence in terms of speed.

[escalade]

The ultra 2 is heavily outdated at this point. It was expensive at launch, and today there are better alternatives out there. It is not perfectly smooth with Aeon NOX and MQ skins. The Atom is a very weak CPU.

I recommend looking at the Zotac boxes or Intel NUC. You can actually build a Celeron NUC cheaper than the Ultra 2 and still outperform it.