[jon__jones]

Hi,

I've got XBMC running on my Raspberry Pi but want to take the plunge and upgrade to a proper system.

I've done lots of searching around trying to find a capable system for little money (quite hard to justify a large price tag).

I've stumbled on a system which appears to be good specs and a great price but I have very little experience with AMD. I've searched around and can't find anything about this particular CPU.

CPU : AMD A-Series A6-3620 QC 2.2GHz
Graphics : AMD Radeon HD6530D.

£279.99
http://www.ebuyer.com/519352-acer-aspire...-slhek-003

What do you guys think? Is this a good spec or would i benefit paying a bit more and upgrading to something like an i3?

Thanks,
Jon

[noggin]

If you want to improve on Raspberry Pi - but only really want to use XBMC still - then that may be overkill.

Have a look at the Celeron 1007U Revo RL80 from eBuyer. £129 after Cashback. I'm running mine and it's pretty nippy. Aeon Nox may not be quite as fluid as it is on my Core i5+nVidia build - but it's streets ahead of the standard Pi and still very nice to use. Confluence is incredibly fluid. (The Revo has USB 3.0, integrated WiFi, 500GB HD, 2GB RAM, HDMI with HD Audio bitstreaming, Toslink etc. It has pretty much everything you could need)

However there are also some developments in Rasp Pi land that are speeding up the Pi quite a bit as well. Running it from a USB stick rather than SD card can make it nippier, and there are some optimisations being made that really improve the experience by all accounts.

[jon__jones]

Thanks for your reply noggin.

You're right. I don't want to do any 'clever' stuff, just play HD x264 files. When I buy tech, I do usually prefer to over spec a slight bit so it's still satisfactory if I decide I want to do more on it.

The Revo does look quite tempting, however. I'll add it to my considerations.

---

noggin, did you experience any issues setting up on the RL80? I've found this thread with a few people having issues.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=152886

Sorry for the double reply.

[noggin]

No issues for me.

There were issues with the original RL80 (the Sandy Bridge Celeron 887 version - since replaced by the Ivy Bridge 1007 Celeron in newer models) but I believe that these have been resolved in newer builds. (They weren't entirely RL80 related AIUI - but the RL80 exposed them)

I had no problems with the Intel 3.2.2 build from the OpenElec site - apart from it not VAAPI de-interlacing (which is only needed if you watch native interlaced content like I do). This isn't RL80 related - it's a general Intel issue. However there are development builds available that enable VAAPI de-interlacing (which is what I am currently running)

The only issue with Intel GPUs pre-Haswell is that they don't do the exact frame rate required for 24p - they come close but don't quite manage it. You may get a repeated or dropped frame once in a while - but I think most people don't notice this.

I know what you mean about over-specing. I have my Revo RL80 as a secondary HTPC - but I'm very happy with it.

[jon__jones]

Hi Noggin,

Sorry to pull up an old topic but I'm going to purchase this and have one more question.

My Pi has the CEC feature so I can control it from my TV remote. Does the RL80 support this also?

Jon

[noggin]

Hi Noggin,

Sorry to pull up an old topic but I'm going to purchase this and have one more question.

My Pi has the CEC feature so I can control it from my TV remote. Does the RL80 support this also?

Jon

No - sadly not. CEC support by PC GPU vendors (nVidia and AMD) is woeful. They just don't bother connecting the CEC stuff and/or implementing drivers for it. Intel may be slightly better, and apparently supporting it in some form for OEMs with their new range of Haswell NUCs (though this may just be exposing the CEC pin to allow an internal extra interface to be implemented) Not useful for the current Revos though.

If you really want CEC then this is the route PC users go for - and I believe it's well supported in Linux and OpenElec : http://www.pulse-eight.com/store/product...apter.aspx It's not cheap though (you daisy chain your HDMI connection through it and connect it to a USB port - it then adds CEC data to the HDMI connection)

However the RL80 does have a CIR (Consumer Infra Red) header on board, and it is possible to connect a TSOP IR receiver to this. "cjed" over at AVForums.com has made some cables, one of which I have bought, which was very easy to fit, and added an internal IR receiver to my Revo. I already had a standard Windows Media Centre remote (RC6 model) and it worked with OpenElec 3.2.2 out of the box.

[jon__jones]

Thanks Noggin.

Ah well, I guess it's no biggie anyway. I've got an old Windows Media Centre remote with USB receiver plus the iPhone and iPad app so I'm pretty well covered

Thanks again for your advice.

Jon

[noggin]

Thanks Noggin.

Ah well, I guess it's no biggie anyway. I've got an old Windows Media Centre remote with USB receiver plus the iPhone and iPad app so I'm pretty well covered

Thanks again for your advice.

Jon

The advantage to the internal CIR solution is that you can use the IR remote to bring the box out of standby or switch it on after a shutdown. Some MS USB IR receivers apparently will also wake the box up - but not all of them.