[gixie]

Hi everybody
As the title of the thread says it, I have a dilemma
I am looking at building a htpc and I can't make up my mind. Which platform is better supported?
I am probably going to install Windows on it and xbmc on top, but I wouldn't mind running openelec on it as well.
I read only good reviews about the Celeron 1037u motherboards, but the new Kabini boards look pretty awesome in terms of processing power an and power consumption...
Please help me make up my mind!
Thanks

[tential]

Celeron 1037u is better supported because it's been out. Kabini is BRAND NEW.

I only have great things to say about Kabini hardware wise. For the price, I love it and the fact that it allows upgrades means you can get new features for only a small 40-60 CPU upgrade. That's great. But I don't know how well kabini is supported and AMD drivers with Linux are meh.... AMD drivers in general have always been meh though.

[noggin]

The only real downside of the 1037U is the 24p bug. Until Haswell (and apparently Baytrail) Intel graphics couldn't accurately output a 23.976Hz refresh rate video signal. As a large amount of "24p" content is actually 23.976Hz (for all sorts of historical NTSC-related reasons which have lived on with HDTV) you can get occasional micro stutters (where a frame is dropped or repeated to keep things in sync). There are ways round this - but none of them are perfect (and usually involve dropping/repeating HD Audio or resampling)

Apart from that the 1037U is a great little CPU (pretty powerful as well). However if the 24p bug is significant to you, then looking for a 2955U Haswell option might be a better bet? (Not as powerful CPU, but no 24p bug)

[gixie]

Hi, and thanks for the replies...
So it looks as it's going to be the Celeron
Is it powerful enough to run Windows and xbmc? I will couple it with some 8gb ddr3 1600 and an sad...
Thanks again
PS: what CPU are you talking about, 2955U Haskell?

[glypto]

The only real downside of the 1037U is the 24p bug. Until Haswell (and apparently Baytrail) Intel graphics couldn't accurately output a 23.976Hz refresh rate video signal. As a large amount of "24p" content is actually 23.976Hz (for all sorts of historical NTSC-related reasons which have lived on with HDTV) you can get occasional micro stutters (where a frame is dropped or repeated to keep things in sync). There are ways round this - but none of them are perfect (and usually involve dropping/repeating HD Audio or resampling)

Apart from that the 1037U is a great little CPU (pretty powerful as well). However if the 24p bug is significant to you, then looking for a 2955U Haswell option might be a better bet? (Not as powerful CPU, but no 24p bug)

It's true 1037U does not support 23.976fps, mine plays such a source at 23.98fps - that means repeated frame every 5 minutes. To be honest, I didn't notice it yet.

[Dougie Fresh]

2955U would be nice but there's not DIY option for it. You'll have to get a ready-made box. There are some 2980U motherboards but they are industrial models and very expensive.

AM1 Kabini is not ready for prime-time. Kabini E1-2100 is good but it's a bit on the slow side. Kabini A6-5200 is probably the only decent working option out there right now.

C1037U/1007U is just great. It actually works, is fast, is inexpensive and it has good drivers.

[noggin]

It's true 1037U does not support 23.976fps, mine plays such a source at 23.98fps - that means repeated frame every 5 minutes. To be honest, I didn't notice it yet.

Yep - if you don't notice it (or don't find it annoying) the 1037U (and 1007U) are still great solutions. I've got a 1007U Revo RL80 which is a great little HTPC (I mainly use it for 50Hz duties where there are no issues).

[Dougie Fresh]

and, BTW, AMD and Nvidia are not immune to the 23.976Hz issue either. The myth lives on

[tential]

Hi, and thanks for the replies...
So it looks as it's going to be the Celeron
Is it powerful enough to run Windows and xbmc? I will couple it with some 8gb ddr3 1600 and an sad...
Thanks again
PS: what CPU are you talking about, 2955U Haskell?

You're running XBMC. You're not running a gaming rig/server. 8GB of ram is overkill.

---

2955U would be nice but there's not DIY option for it. You'll have to get a ready-made box. There are some 2980U motherboards but they are industrial models and very expensive.

AM1 Kabini is not ready for prime-time. Kabini E1-2100 is good but it's a bit on the slow side. Kabini A6-5200 is probably the only decent working option out there right now.

C1037U/1007U is just great. It actually works, is fast, is inexpensive and it has good drivers.

Your Kabini sentences make sense to me because I understand the differences. But to other people, it may just sound like you're confusing them.

[gixie]

Hi all and thanks for the replies...
So it looks like it's settled then... I'll go for the BIOSTAR NM70I-1037U Intel Celeron 1037U Dual-Core 1.8GHz Intel NM70 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU/VGA Combo which sells for $79 on a website that I probably can't mention here...
I'll just remove 2X4GB from my gaming machine as I don't think I really need all the 16GB in it.
Too bad it doesn't come with DC input... I had my eyes on a kabini mobo (below) which sells for $75 minus a $20 MIR (Canadian dollars, so obviously the Canadian website of the same retailer), but if you guys say that I'm better off with this Celery...
ASRock AM1H-ITX AM1 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 DC-In/ATX Power Input Mini ITX AMD Motherboard
I'll post my impressions as soon as I complete my build.
For now I ordered a 64GB SSD from tho other retailer, the one that ends in x.com. Came to $60 shipped.
SanDisk Ultra Plus SDSSDHP-064G-G25
I am not sure I can post links...

[User 126104]

just finished putting together the 1037U from biostar. i did the kabini dance with the 5350 and msi for about a week, then gave up. support isn't there yet. i tried windows 7 and *buntu distros. it's unfortunate coz the power consumption as a quad core was around 15W only... louder fan than my old amd e-350 though. i rma it and went with the biostar 1037u. i was going to get the intel j1800 but didn't want to buy sodimm ddr3L ram when i already had parts lying around from my old, dead htpc.

i installed ubuntu 14.04 LTS with 4GB ram and an old kingston ssd v100 90gb drive. not the fastest but i just wanted something faster than hdd for boot up. my media is on a nas using NFS connection. so far it runs great. as "quiet" as my old e350, yet more powerful. while playing video, temp is around 35C and power consumption is around 21W. for htpc, dual core is more than enough, specially when you run it with linux. good luck with your build.

[gixie]

Hi all,
Got my Biostar mobo and went ahead and installed it in a case that I had around at home. The temps seem a bit on the high side (50 Celsius) so I ordered the M 350 case. I saw that you used the same case w1n78, could you please comment on the temps?
Anyways, the build includes a 64gb ssd and 8gb of ddr3 1600. I took the ram from my gaming rig (still has 8 GB left). I know it's an overkill for a HTPC, but I'm hunting for a good deal on a 2x2 GB sticks...
It's smooth, plays really everything I throw at it (mind you, I don't have too demanding files in my collection).
I'll keep you posted

[radry]

i did the kabini dance with the 5350 and msi for about a week, then gave up. support isn't there yet. i tried windows 7 and *buntu distros.

I'm currently facing the same decision. Athlon 5350 vs. Celeron 1037U. What kind of "support" where you missing? Drivers for Win7 should have been available.

Unfortunately I couldn't find any proper reviews of the celeron (although it's over a year old) so I'm still undecided. The celeron has slightly better single core performance but the athlon still hast double the cores and a better gpu.
Can anyone here test if the celeron can do lanczos scaling and what its idle power consumption is?