(01-30-2013, 07:59 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]But why does it have to be small is my question?
Because I honestly do not have enough space in the loft to connect another device to the HDTV. The Wii, PS2, PS3, and 360 already sit side-by-side is on the carpet; there's no more comfortable (or visually pleasing) real-estate on the floor, and I haven't even bought a WiiU yet. My Raspberry Pi and MK803 are just small enough where they can sit behind the TV. Anything larger than a DVD drive won't sit right on the cabinet. Yes, it has to be small in this case. Since it has to sit behind the TV, I'd also appreciate it being as inconspicuous as possible in an already clustered space. Size is exactly the reason I was interested in the RPi, other ARM based dev-boards, and Android "PC-on-a-stick" devices when it came to creating my emu-console. The issue is now finding the proper power, else I'd have just gutted a cheap netbook and hooked it up to the HDTV (and I was considering this).
NaturalViolence Wrote:After a certain point you have to look to complex custom cooling solutions etc. to squeeze more power out of a small form factor. And even then you can only squeeze so much more out of it. The "standard" hardware tends to be cheap but also weak. But if you're willing to get a larger system it's fairly easy to get lots of processing power for cheap. You also have to trade flexibility (expansion and usb ports for example) for small size.
The point at which it needs custom cooling is the point I stop looking at it as a viable product. I'm looking for a mini-PC I can just buy, put it behind my TV, and have enough power to play a handful of emulators. Installing a mini-fan is fine, passive cooling is ideal (though not always possible given device dimensions) anything more than that is behind the scope of my hobby. That's part of the reason why most NUC options aren't attractive atm, since it requires users to purchase a lot of additional parts (primarily memory and storage), just like a bare-bones PC-kit. I'm in the market for something I can buy and run as soon as the package hits my front door. Only a few vendors are doing that (granted, NUC hasn't been pushed for more than a few months anyway) and those are the ones that have my attention currently.
I'm not worried about getting lots of processing power for cheap, just enough to match or exceed my old laptop (Intel Pentium T3400) which ran everything I wanted from it, excepting Dolphin and PCSX2. In reality, the only ports I'll need are HDMI and 1 USB for the joystick. Once the emu-console is setup (e.g. custom interface completed, emulators compiled and configured), I'll be able to control the whole thing with only a joystick. The RPi was my prototype for this, and it worked out alright as far as experiments go.
NaturalViolence Wrote:The newegg reviews on that device are pretty mediocre. It seems to have a lot of shortcomings if you dig deeper.
Most of the cons don't seem to apply to my situation as far as I can tell. I only really care that the device can best my old laptop in terms of CPU performance and size. The lack of a power adapter sucks, and as I said, I'm not interested in buying a bare-bones kit (the Velocity Micro Edge Mini is more my style). In general, this product seems right for me for the purpose of getting an emu-console, but most NUC are too costly for me to consider purchasing. Were these devices somewhere in the $350 range, I'd snap one up later this year. $500+ is too much, and I could get a stronger low-profile PC for that price-point (but probably not at the size I need it).
NaturalViolence Wrote:You can build a sandy bridge celeron based nettop for around $300 that should meet your needs and be more flexible.
Show me the parts and show that it'll fit the size requirements, and then I'll reconsider whether NUC devices would make good emu-consoles for me.
EDIT: Alternatively, if you can find me any nettop with more power than my laptop, be it Sandy Bridge or Atom, in that price/size range, I'd seriously flip, in a good way mind you :p