Opinions! RPI4b vs Generic x86 Is there any reason to anymore?

    Hi Guys,

    I've been sitting on some hardware for two Intel Xeon D HTPC's that i plan on using some older AMD RX550 passive gpu's i have lying about. In the meantime i've been using the RPI4b and tbh... It's handled everything pretty well. I'm an avid 4K x265 10bit media consumer and I'm always interested in ways of using more computation power to better my HTPCs processing and image quality so it's nice to have the head room in the intel htpc but i'm struggling to think of any real advanages to running an intel based HTPC with an aftermarket AMD RX550 over just the RPI4b right now, other than having a platform that i can swap the card out for to support native 8k hardware decoding in the future and potentially dual booting into a more capable emulation pc i'm strugging to justify keeping the components from both htpc's.

    Interested to hear others friendly opinions that 'are' or 'were' running a generic build. And what their views are right now with where the rpi4b currently is at with librelec development.

    Cheers

    RPi4 wins because it generates less heat and lower electricity bills. Occupying less space and probably being more reliable in the long-term due to the massively larger number of users fixing issues in the codebase are bonus credit.

    chewitt - Thanks for the reply - I agree with your points.

    Just to stretch the conversation, I suppose the power consumption may not be too much of an issue for me if i'm only using the system for 2-3 hours twice a week for a movie etc as my main lounge htpc solution. However i'm totally rpi4 on any additional tv's in bedrooms etc.

    And i totally agree with your point about the amount of fixes and optmizations that go into the rpi4 codebase compared to snowflake generic builds. I'd assume there's a ton more variables that can catch anyone running a generic build that the rpi4 dosn't have to worry about.

    However, do you not feel that from a future proofing perspective that we're nearing the end of what the rpi4b hardware can handle in terms of gpu and hardware limitations for anything more than 4K HDR 10bit? It feels that the next move for tv and film will be a push to 8k and i'm not sure when and even if the rpi5 will compliment the move to these future formats... (Granted they'll be very little content in 8k for years etc, etc so potentially a moot point for most people.) It does feel like for me it's a consideration because i already have both rpi4 and the kit to assemble the higher end generic build.

    Lastly, is there not an argument for potentially better movie decoding from the generic build in regards to using a more powerful dedicated GPU for processing and image optimization compared to the capabilities of the rpi4? That's me asking... i really don't have any comparison for this.