Intel NUC - Worth waiting for Skylake?

[tongue_of_colicab]

Hi,

My WD live tv is dying so I'm looking for a new media player. The live tv was fine for me to the extent that it played pretty much everything and even did HD audio. I've been looking for a similar box as I payed only 50 bucks for this device 3 years ago but sadly it seems you can't get them anymore over here. I've looked into android boxes by they are all a fair bit more expensive and it seems android comes with its own quirks too.

So I've made my mind up and I'll just get a NUC. The advantage is I can also run emby or plex on it and stream stuff when I'm at my girlfriend's place and it's just a lot more fun than some closed box.

But with Skylake recently released would it be worth waiting for the 6th gen of NUC's? There are no announcements at all, just some rumors from back in Juli talking about a Q3 or Q4 release. Which is now.

How much faster are the Skylake mobile cpu's compared to Broadwell? It seems the Skylake NUC's won't be getting things like HDMI 2.0 so the only significant difference is going to be the chip.

Broadwell should already be able to do 4k HEVC so in that sense it should be pretty future proof. Other than all I want from the hardware is visualization which I think is supported on the Broadwell NUC's, the ability to transcode one 1080p to 720p or 480p stream for use with emby, this too appears not the be a real issue.

Fun extra's would be if it could run dolphin at 60fps but this isn't really such a big issue as I actually have a Wii, its just that my video cable sucks and combined with the wii's low resolution I just can't look at it. Than again if Broadwell isn't going to run dolphin too well than I don't think Skylake would be such a massive difference.

Anyway, would it be worth it to wait another month or so to see if Intel announces anything or is the difference between Broadwell and Skylake so small that it doesn't really make a difference?

PS. I'm looking at the i5 model, the 200 dollar premium for a i7 is too much for my purposes.

 

[BRiT]

I would try to wait for Skylake until the end of November, however have you looked into a Roku device?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I did but I think they are incredibly overpriced. I payed 5000 yen the live tv 3 years ago. The cheapest Roku on amazon is 15000 yen and that is one of those tv stick thingies so it doesn't even come with a usb slot (the box models on amazon don't have usb either it seems, besides costing over 20000 yen). I don't have a NAS so no usb or space for a HDD doesn't work for me.

Also I think 3 ~ 4 times the price of what I payed for the live tv is ridiculous since the Roku's don't have any extra functionality that I'll use. In that sense I'd rather pay 50000 for a NUC that does it all.

I'll try and wait until the end of November.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Skylake doesn't have a large CPU performance increase over Broadwell. Except when it comes to throttling due to heat, where Skylake will do a fair bit better.

Important for notebooks, not as important for desktops. NUCs are interesting in that some companies do cooling quite well while others don't. Skylake could potentially be beneficial there.

The other area where Skylake would be advantageous in a NUC is for gaming. However, if you don't plan to do much gaming through the device, a well designed Broadwell NUC will likely get you 95% of the performance of a similar Skylake NUC for most of the general HTPC stuff.

The other potential area where it could be better is in power consumption. But, I don't expect it to have a large advantage there either. At least in practical terms of money saved on electricity.

Regards,
SB

 

[homerdog]

I don't think you would notice a big difference between a Broadwell or Skylake NUC, unless like posted above you are gaming on it.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I don't think you would notice a big difference between a Broadwell or Skylake NUC, unless like posted above you are gaming on it.

Or trying to decode a H265/HEVC 2K/4K video, which may become rather mainstream during the next couple of years.


Attention: Broadwell does not have a hardware HEVC decoding block and the CPU certainly isn't fast enough to decode a 4K stream. You'd need a hybrid decoder (CPU+iGPU) but for Broadwell you'd need a GT3. HEVC at over 10Mbps bitrate is hell, at least for now:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1694697

If video decoding is important - at least HEVC - then you'd probably be better off looking at NUCs equipped with a Cherry Trail. I don't know if those are already around, though.




Or maybe you could find something with an AMD APU? There's an OpenCL decoder that seems to only work with AMD GPUs.

 

[Davros]

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...TR12.TRC2.A0.H0.TRS0&_nkw=WD+live+tv&_sacat=0

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Davros, how is he going to play glorious PC games through Steam In-Home Streaming with that feeble box?

I am disappoint.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Or trying to decode a H265/HEVC 2K/4K video, which may become rather mainstream during the next couple of years.


Attention: Broadwell does not have a hardware HEVC decoding block and the CPU certainly isn't fast enough to decode a 4K stream. You'd need a hybrid decoder (CPU+iGPU) but for Broadwell you'd need a GT3. HEVC at over 10Mbps bitrate is hell, at least for now:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1694697

If video decoding is important - at least HEVC - then you'd probably be better off looking at NUCs equipped with a Cherry Trail. I don't know if those are already around, though.




Or maybe you could find something with an AMD APU? There's an OpenCL decoder that seems to only work with AMD GPUs.

According to Intel there is GPU acceleration but it does indeed seem that 4k is a no-go on higher bitrates.
https://communities.intel.com/thread/59216

Skylake has proper hardware acceleration.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...TR12.TRC2.A0.H0.TRS0&_nkw=WD+live+tv&_sacat=0

Ebay is asking more for those than I payed for mine 3 years ago :')

The first Skylake NUC's have appeared online btw. http://nucblog.net/2015/11/signs-of-skylake-nucs-shipping

Guess I should just hold off a month or two.

 

[Davros]

Davros, how is he going to play glorious PC games through Steam In-Home Streaming with that feeble box?

He can stop being a lazy bugger and connect his p.c to the monitor directly

 

[Malo]

He can stop being a lazy bugger and connect his p.c to the monitor directly

There's nothing wrong with playing some awesome games on PC that are well suited for the living room with a controller.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

He can stop being a lazy bugger and connect his p.c to the monitor directly

Hey! Are you trying to call me a peasant?!

I already have my pc connected to my tv. Now if only I could get steam to change the monitor output to the tv when I start steam in big picture mode..