- Brain Issues
- Dec 16, 2004
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lol
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Good on Corsair for doing a recall, and covering shipping costs both ways. It's nice to see a company acknowledge a defect and own it.
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Jun 4, 2020 22:55
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Apr 26, 2024 11:18
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- Brain Issues
- Dec 16, 2004
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lol
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The old laptop I've been using for my "HTPC" -- really just running windows to stream videos from my network storage and occasionally watching twitch, youtube, etc on TV in an ad-blockable way -- has apparently decided to kick the bucket. I'm looking to replace it with a more dedicated HTPC solution. I'm not entirely sure what that looks like nowadays.
Constraints:
- Ideally uses DisplayPort. My TV is one of the weird Panasonics that uses DP for one of its two 4K-capable inputs and I'm unlikely to find anything else to plug in there.
- Can handle playing compressed media at 4K@60Hz without trouble.
- Small, assembled, quiet, reasonably designed. A black box is fine, but I don't want to solder my own Pi.
- Reasonably flexible when it comes to the software I can run. I'd like to be able to run some better HTPC-type UI, use steam link, etc.
- It would be nice if it could run some up-to-90s emulators natively so I can wallow in childhood nostalgia.
- I don't care about storage or wifi, it'll sit in a cabinet under the TV, next to my switch and NAS.
- Doesn't have to be the cheapest possible option, but I don't see a reason to spend much money on this.
I have a Chromecast Ultra but it's a little too limited for what I want, in addition to definitely not using displayport. I'm thinking the best solution is just the most cheap-rear end NUC-style mini PC I can find, but that's not a hardware segment I'm at all familiar with. Currently looking at a Zotac PI335, which is available here in Europe, is cheap (213€), and has a Celeron N4100 which I think is probably fine for my purposes. Is that a reasonable enough choice? Does the hardware matter at all for this sort of stuff nowadays? I don't need to or want to play modern PC games on this thing, but I do want it to not choke on video playback and be responsive to use. Are there other approaches, like more flexible pure streaming solutions than a Chromecast, that I should be looking at? Would I be better off outside x86-land? Windows feels like an optional expense, but I haven't really seen a better non-windows option.
Knowing your budget and country would help but you can get a micro form factor desktop like the following if they are available and reasonable price in your country. They're close to $200 on the used market in the US and have much better processors than the Celeron thing you mentioned.
Dell Optiplex Micro 7050
HP Prodesk 600 G4 Mini
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Jun 16, 2022 21:24
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Jun 4, 2020 22:55
