PC to replace a Raspberry Pi3 (4K, DTS, DTS-HD, etc)

BenoitG · April 5, 2023 at 8:13 AM

Hello to all,

Sorry if my english is weird, I'm not very good with the language of Shakespeare.

First of all I want to say that LibreElec is really a wonderful project and that it gives me a lot of satisfaction with my little Raspberry Pi 3B+.

I can play MKV videos encoded in H264, DTS, DTS-HD sound, etc. without any problem. Amazing what you can do with a very small card!

Here I am asking myself questions to make my system more reliable because I want to be able to play 4K videos always with a high definition sound with a great Hifi system. The raspberry is unable to do so unfortunately...

So I have the idea to buy a pc and transform it into a home cinema pc with LibreElec as OS. I don't need HDR.

Just 4K (H264 and H265) and the best possible Audio standards.

I have located different pc such as :

HP prodesk 600 g2 : i5 6500t - 8go ram and SSD 120go

Dell OPTIPLEX 390 : Intel i3-2100 - 4GB ram and 300GB HDD

Could you tell me if a PC of this range could correspond to my needs? I have a budget of about 100$.

A lot of PCs nowadays only have DisplayPort sockets, is it inconvenient to put an HDMI adapter on it to keep getting DTS, Atmos, etc.?

Thanks in advance

Have a nice day

Benoit

tokul · April 5, 2023 at 3:46 PM

100 USD might get you used pc. NUC11 + ram + ssd + air mouse would be around 200 USD.

Motherboard+CPU alone is over 50USD.

LybsterKodi · April 5, 2023 at 5:26 PM

I'll agree with tokul UC11 cost for a new one and add in the possibility of fan noise from a PC. The Pi runs nice and quiet.

BenoitG · April 5, 2023 at 6:04 PM

Thank you for your answers, would you have any examples of NUC11 to advise me?

Which processor (i3, i5, etc)?

How many gigs of RAM?

When I was talking about 100$ it's obviously for a second hand pc but I can put more obviously.

etc.

DxPedro · April 5, 2023 at 6:56 PM

See a NUC or an older miniPC; HP and Lenovo (thinkpad) have made a few with decent specs, that might cater to what you need, since HDR isnt a thing for you.

cheers

tokul · April 6, 2023 at 3:13 AM

Quote from BenoitG

Thank you for your answers, would you have any examples of NUC11 to advise me?
Which processor (i3, i5, etc)?
How many gigs of RAM?
When I was talking about 100$ it's obviously for a second hand pc but I can put more obviously.
etc.

Product Description Intel Next Unit of Computing 11 Essential Kit - NUC11ATKC2 - mini PC - Celeron N4505 2 GHz - 0 GB - no HDD

Processor 1 x Intel Celeron N4505 / 2 GHz (2.9 GHz) (Dual-Core)

RAM 0 GB (installed) / 32 GB (max) - DDR4 SDRAM

Hard Drive No HDD

Product Description Gigabyte BRIX GB-BLCE-4000C (rev. 1.0) - Ultra Compact PC Kit - Celeron N4000 1.1 GHz - 0 GB - no HDD

Processor 1 x Intel Celeron N4000 / 1.1 GHz (2.6 GHz) (Dual-Core)

RAM 0 GB (installed) / 8 GB (max) - DDR4 SDRAM

Hard Drive No HDD

Look for barebone pc in your online store and sort by price. If you don't know what air mouse is, check amazon.

Although looks like local cheap hardware store does list multiple HP or dell mini pcs under 100 EUR and every single one comes with VGA, DVI or display port. No HDMI and extra charge for some infidel OS.

Any x86 kit will work. Just go with the one with integrated intel graphics instead of some fancy nvidia one. bonus, if you get hdmi or your tv supports vga. Half of your price will be ram/ssd/mouse anyway.