Acer eMachines ER1402

Hi,

After a long comparison I decided to buy the Asrock ION 330HT.
But two days ago, I gound new model of Acer, and now I do not know what to choose for XBMC
What do you think about this ?

Thanks for any tips.
Regards

Is the Nvidia 9200 any good for HD?

well, this neo single core CPU sits right between the single core and dual core atoms performance-wise, and this "nforce 9200" is completely unknown.... some sites speculate it could be a modified ION to work with the AMD NEO CPUs, but nobody knows right now for sure, especially since these AMD CPUs are supposed to be used with AMD/ATI chipsets as the "Nile" platform.

apart from the design I don't see any point why somebody would buy this instead of a tried-and-proven revo 3610.
IF this thing can actually do 1080p decoding it would be an interesting alternative though....

An ION is a Nvidia 9400M. So if this thing is a 9200m it will be weaker than a Revo. For that reason I wouldn't touch this eMachine.

In fact, this machine is kinda embarrassing. 9xxx series Nvidia's are really old hat now- they got a second life in the ION chipset but honestly the Geforce 2xx stuff has been out long enough that any company making a new product that redefines a new low for the 9xxx series should be embarrassed of what junk they are trying to sell...

poofyhairguy Wrote:An ION is a Nvidia 9400M. So if this thing is a 9200m it will be weaker than a Revo. For that reason I wouldn't touch this eMachine.
.

I very much doubt that it's the 9200M, since the 9200M is specific for Intel cpus and contains the memory management for Intel cpus which is not compatible with AMD cpus that have the MMU in the cpu.

I think the 9200 is most likely a 8200/8300 which is the version for AMD cpus of the 9300/9400, so it would be equivalent to the ION.

Therefore this box seems quite okay, especially since the AMD Neo is faster than a dual-core Atom.

Digging up this thread.

Anyone tried XBMC on an ER1401/1402 yet?

I was going to buy a Revo R3610 from the same seller as a friend used, but they advised that they no longer stock it and recommend the ER1401 instead, which they sell quite cheaply considering the specs and say is a better device overall. But they have not been able to confirm suitability for XBMC. It all looks comparable to (or better than) an R3610 except for the unknown (to me) factor of the video card. From the comments above it seems like there is a bit of uncertainty.

Processor AMD Athlon™ II Neo dual-core processor K325 (2 MB L2 cache, 1.30 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 12 W)

Chipset NVIDIA® nForce® 9200 Chipset, supporting NVIDIA® GeForce® 9200 Graphics and 1080p Full HD

System memory Dual-channel 800 MHz 2GB DDR3 SDRAM support:
* 320 GB6 5400 RPM
* 2.5" HDD

Graphics NVIDIA® GeForce® 9200 Graphics
Audio S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface)5 support for digital speakers

etc

So it claims 1080p but I need to know if it will run XBMC before I fork over a few hundred bucks. I don't suppose anyone's done any real world testing?

Thanks for any advice, it will be most appreciated as I really need to sort this out.

anthropoidape Wrote:So it claims 1080p but I need to know if it will run XBMC before I fork over a few hundred bucks. I don't suppose anyone's done any real world testing?

Thanks for any advice, it will be most appreciated as I really need to sort this out.

I don't think anyone here has bought it, certainly no one mentioned it.

I'd say, buy it somewhere that has a money back guarantee, try out and give it back if it's not suitable.

And don't forget to let us know how it works, we want a full report with pictures!

Personally I think it will work fine.

ion_man Wrote:Personally I think it will work fine.

So do I, on the basis that nvidia 1080p is probably going to be nvidia 1080p one way or the other. I am slightly reluctant to blow $300 without knowing for sure though. Hmmm, I will keep mulling it over

I'm still digging. I've contacted emachines (useless), the vendor (may possibly test xbmc live for me), and some guy on a forum who owns an ER1402-05.

FWIW his post in the other forum says: "I finally received it, and I found out that the graphics chip is actually an 8200 (C77/C78 core), but apparently gets "renamed" as a 9200 by the driver in Windows, while the chipset it nVidia's nForce 720a."

So I guess this suggests it's an AMD-oriented equivalent of an Ion, basically, but I am going to wait for replies to the questions I sent for now.

If it's basically a renamed 8200 (which is very likely), then it will work fine, Nvidia 8200 based mobos are well suited for XBMC, they do 1080p playback just like the ION.