I think one of the best arm processors for video decoding is the amlogic s922xj and the closest development board based on this is the odroid n2plus. I also see that it has problems decoding 8k video, that is, a better one will appear soon. In the meantime you can continue investigating the best passive cooling alternatives or whatever you want.
I ended up getting a passively cooled mini PC based on the Celeron N5105 which is a quad core 10w CPU.
Intel NUC 11 comes with Core i3-i7
Celeron N5105 - 4 cores, 2.0 GHz, L2 cache1.5 MB, L3 cache 4 MB, UHD Graphics (24 EUs) 450-800 MHz, 2 × DDR4/LPDDR4X-293, 10 W
Even I3 1115 got more cache and faster graphics support than that Celeron. i5 or i7 will outdo Celeron N5105 in cores.
You just got yourself more options in case selection (if you went with mini-itx mobo and custom case), lower wattage and little less performance than NUC11.
The only 5105 option that I see in local store is essentially non-Intel version of slower NUC at the Gen7 NUC price range.
Intel NUC 11 comes with Core i3-i7
Sure, the NUCs are faster but as I stated in my initial post, top performance isn't really the goal. Also:
* NUCs just don't hold up well to 24/7 usage. NUCs were my goto choice for media PCs but I have had two fail in the last couple of years and they are too expensive to be disposable. We also use them at work as SBCs at small remote sites and see high failure rates there too.
* I am looking for a low power, passively cooled solution.
The only 5105 option that I see in local store is essentially non-Intel version of slower NUC at the Gen7 NUC price range.
This is probably a regional difference. I paid quite a bit less than I would for even an older NUC.
Sure, the NUCs are faster but as I stated in my initial post, top performance isn't really the goal. Also:
* NUCs just don't hold up well to 24/7 usage. NUCs were my goto choice for media PCs but I have had two fail in the last couple of years and they are too expensive to be disposable. We also use them at work as SBCs at small remote sites and see high failure rates there too.
* I am looking for a low power, passively cooled solution.
there are many ways to interpret "don't hold up well". I was consider suggesting mini-itx based fanless mobo, but did not do that after checking NUC specs. You did sound like NUC was not powerful enough for you.
there are many ways to interpret "don't hold up well".
Perhaps, but in addition to that not being what I wrote, when it is immediately followed by "I have had 2 fail in the last couple of years.", it seems like the meaning should be clear.
You did sound like NUC was not powerful enough for you.
I don't think I wrote that. It was the RPi4 which I noted was not powerful enough.
Either way, I found a solution which seems to meet my fairly specific needs in this case so I think all is well here.
I also use a mini-PC MSI Cubi N with Pentium N5000 (so one generation older than the N5105). It works very well with LibreELEC in my use case (mainly playing blu-ray and 4k blu-ray rips from my server).
I have an older one as well using Celeron N3060, and that's more than good enough for full-HD blu-ray rips but cannot do 4k rips (which require HEVC support).
Both devices are fanless and therefore completely silent.
I use a Pine64's Rock64 with the aluminum case (you do need that for proper cooling!) and I can (even) play 4k HDR streams. All passively cooled.
I would recommend their Quartz64 instead though. It might be a bit 'rough around the edges' right now as its software support is still getting upstreamed (into Linus' kernel), but that's progressing quite quickly.
The HW is much newer and with a smaller production process and therefor runs much cooler then the Rock64.
