Banana Pi: The next generation of single-board computers? • Hacker News Board

Re: Banana Pi: The next generation of single-board computers?

#51

Post by maratc » Mon, Apr 28, 2014, 1:13 PM UTC

mongrelion wrote: post #19

maratc wrote: post #6

$74 after shipping? Newegg will sell you a motherboard with a dual-core x86 CPU for $50 ($32 after rebate). With a new AMD AM1 platform, you can get a four-core x86 and a motherboard for $69. Raspberry Pi is a nice thing for $35. For $75, much nicer alternatives exist.

Actually, I hadn't thought about this. My uncle's in need for a media center (he's already got the home theatre and the forty-something-inches LED T.V. and I was thinking of gettin'im a RPi with the rest of the fancy stuff but you totally would get waaaay better performance with a little bit more "expensive" board. The last time that I checked for this kind of solutions I was fancying some Zotac box but that one was…

For a media center, Raspberry Pi is great since it has hardware video decoding in GPU. The menus in XBMC use the CPU, so they are a bit sloppy, but overclocking it a bit is reported to help. Mali (A20's GPU) has no driver for hardware-accelerated decoding, so it's going to decode video on CPU, and will likely be even slower than RPi. Other boards, I'm not really know but XBMC site has a list of recommended hardware.

On x86 front, if size matters, you can take a look at this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135... ($32 after rebate). It needs a stick of alaptop RAM and a laptop power brick. You can load XBMC from a USB stick.

If size doesn't matter, look for AM1 CPU/motherboard. CPU will run you $31 (http://www.amazon.com/AMD-Sempron-2650-1-45Ghz-AD2650JAHMBOX...) and motherboard, $34 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157...).

Re: Banana Pi: The next generation of single-board computers?

#52

Post by maratc » Mon, Apr 28, 2014, 1:20 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #43

maratc wrote: post #6

$74 after shipping? Newegg will sell you a motherboard with a dual-core x86 CPU for $50 ($32 after rebate). With a new AMD AM1 platform, you can get a four-core x86 and a motherboard for $69. Raspberry Pi is a nice thing for $35. For $75, much nicer alternatives exist.

Sure, but your dual-core x86 machine will be larger, likely require a fan, and eat quite a bit more electricity than the Banana Pi.

There are 25W CPUs, some are passively cooled. It's still more than ARM though. Here's the deal: ARM is very good at doing nothing, but x86 is better at doing something. If your project is doing nothing (not intensive), RPi is good for you; if it's intensive, x86 may be better.

These ARM boards certainly have their place. We use one to drive a TV with build/bug/CI status. RPi is too slow, and x86 is too big to fit, but a beefier board (Odroid-u3) is just fine, and still hangs behind the TV running on its USB port. But for most of the other projects, either a RPi is good, or you'd be better off with x86.

Re: Banana Pi: The next generation of single-board computers?

#53

Post by PhasmaFelis » Mon, Apr 28, 2014, 5:50 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #40

> the $35 Raspberry Pi, which was introduced in 2012, with its 700MHz ARM11 processor and 512MBs of RAM, is looking a little dowdy these days. Someone has fundamentally understood the reason that the Pi exists. Also, these guys have immediately blown their trustworthiness by deliberately creating confusion between their brand and an established one ("[fruit] Pi").

Ugh. That should say "misunderstood," of course.

Re: Banana Pi: The next generation of single-board computers?

#54

Post by pmjordan » Tue, Apr 29, 2014, 9:26 PM UTC

dwild wrote: post #48

pmjordan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Intel NUCs are in a similar price range, especially once you take case, PSU, etc. into consideration. You can get them motherboard-only, but in the pre-built ones you just add RAM and Flash/HDD and you're done. The NUCs probably also win on overall power consumption, just check that you can use accelerated HD video decoding in the model you choose with the software you want to use.

There's Intel NUC cheap than 350$? Also case and PSU aren't a problem, either you get a Pico PSU for 50$ with a cheap case, or you take a case that include a PSU. They are cheap and the fan are noisy but for under $60... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154...

The RRP of the Intel NUC Kit DN2820FYKH is $128:

http://ark.intel.com/products/78953/Intel-NUC-Kit-DN2820FYK?...

I believe that includes the Wifi/Bluetooth module already, but not the DDR3L RAM module or an SSD/HDD.

If that model is missing something you need you can of course opt for one of the more expensive ones - there is a reasonable range. I'm considering getting one to act as a router, DD-WRT/OpenWRT on consumer/SOHO router hardware is incredibly fiddly. The power consumption of some of these devices is comparable.