Best bang for buck Hardware 2020

Hello!

I’m wondering what would be the best bang :facepunch: for buck :heavy_dollar_sign: hardware to buy now.

It should be better/faster than the raspberry pi 3 which I’m using at the moment but still in a budget meaning a maximum of around 20€ (important because everything higher from outside the eu will almost double the price because of local regulations and taxes).

I did some research and found TV Boxes with s902, s902x2 and s912 with 2g/16g in this price range. All of these chips are not particular fresh but should show a big performance boost compared to the rpi3 - right? The s912 looks like the beefiest one here. A “M8S Plus L Mecool” with 2/16g is available for around 19€ shipped.

What else could be a good bargain? Are there newer chips which are supported and still available on budget?

Can you tell us how much did you payed for TV?

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Where do you live. Some Chinese stores have eu warehouses. Then you dont have to pay any taxes etc. I payed €33 for a x96 max+ with a s905x3 and 4gb of ram.

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I would get the newest chipset you can afford for “future proofing”

Sure. Nothing. I got this Full HD, 100Hz, LED, DVBxyz, … gifted because it wasn’t state of the art anymore (6 years ago when I got it).

I’m actually really gifted because it’s a non smart tv!

Interesting. From what I read so far the s905x3 is/was supposed a (little?) weaker than a s912… but 4/16g indeed is different.

But also what I read here is that for core/elec/kodi two gigs of ram is far than enough and more will not be utilized anyway? So is there any use to pay more for not being able to use it?

What I don’t like about the newest chipsets is that they are often barely usable so much stuff is not working and it takes months or often years to get all hardware components working or even a future proof mainline support.

So sometimes I just prefer older hardware with better or superior software support than a (in theory) better/stronger hardware. It will make a device/chipset also much more “future proof” is mainline support is present.

But what chipset would it be that you will get @bubblegum57

When you invest €20 in a old EOL SoC you will invest next year even more. SoC starting from G12* is fully supported. And when invest that less in a unknown chinese cheap device you also will invest it double or more.

All talking about this is already more than €20.

You would not accept any recommended hardware anyway as you will need to spend more than €20.

Like invest multiple times in cheap devices with a lot of troubles or invest in one device and have fun for the next years.

Actually I’m here to get recommendations - that’s why I posted this thread :wink:

I think both is possible. I invested in a cheap raspberry pi 3 almost 5 years ago and it’s still running and working fine.

Pretty much anything from th past few years will blow the Pi3 out of the water.

€20 is a very meagre price though, so will limit things quite a lot.

I still use an S912 as a secondary box and it works quite well and iff the M8S Plus L meets your needs then go for it.

But I would look at fleabay and spend a little extra to get an S905X3, which is now quite well supported and off course, up to date, meaning that support will continue for much longer than the S912 will.

If you up your budget to €30-€35 then the possibilities will open far more widely.

And black friday is around the corner, so many a bargain to be had then too.

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Thank’s @Compent! That was very useful information :100: you left here for me. After these empty answers from @vpeter and @bubblegum57 I wasn’t sure if there will people here willing to help or just continue to spam… you proofed me wrong luckily :+1:

That sounds good. My needs are actually quite easy to meet. The raspberry pi 3 still does it’s job. Most annoying thing is just the sometimes slow kodi interface for me.

What is your opinion about 2gigs of ram VS. 4gig? From reading around the world wide web and this forum it looks like to me there is no real advantage using 4gig for a *elec only setup - it will just never be utilized by the system. Is this true?

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This was a good tip. I have a x96 max+ with 2/16g for 23€ just under my finger… just waiting for @Compent that 2gigs of ram is “future proof” :stuck_out_tongue:

I recently purchased a X96 max plus. with x905x3. I still have S912, I have a Mecool M8S with a non working wifi. I still have a Beelink s905,
I also have a Amazon fire tv 4k & a nvidia shield.
You ask what I would buy, I just bought a DS920+ I don’t need anything at the moment.

For video playback, 2Gb is enough.

If streaming, then Ethernet or WiFi speed are more relevant.

If you are gaming and doing things that benefit from more RAM, then 4Gb is going to be of benefit and it is often not that much more expensive to get a model with more RAM.

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Please don’t do this. People were trying to help you out. With that budget it’s a lottery to buy a device. It can work ok, be half decent or a piece of trash. Just referring S912 as a good deal shows that your research was superficial, to say the least. Unfortunately, the S912 is the forgotten chip from amlogic. It’s the most likely to be unsupported or poorly supported in the next generation of kodi (and CoreELEC).
With a bit more money you can buy a S905X3 that’s more future proof and 5 minutes searching the forum you’ll find them.

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I did already :wink:

Not really sure about that… How does it help to know the cost of my TV?

I went for a x96 max+ (s905x3 based) as suggested by @rednas74 and went for the edition with 2GB ram after @Compent was so nice to explain me the “real” benefit for my use case.

23€ spent… let’s see what a half working ok-ish piece of trash I get :wink:

Any way thank’s for trying to help…

Main problem with 2GB models is they’re often limited to 100Mbit rather than Gigabit ethernet, which looks to be the case with the X96 MAX Plus.

No problem for me because I don’t have ethernet available on the spot I’m going to use it. The 2.4ghz wifi (3 meters away ~300Mbit) will be sufficient in any way (as it is with the raspberry pi 3 at the moment). I’m also living happy without bluetooth mouse and keyboard :genie:

Stay on raspi 3 if You don´t want to spend money