Is there flat out a consensus on the most powerful Android TV box money can buy out right now?

[PLZHeLPMEplz]

Found an article

http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/09/25/performance-comparison-of-amlogic-s805-and-s802-processors/

Saying he S802 chip is stronger than the S805
Then I saw this thread

http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/general-tv-player-dicussions/19154-which-chip-is-the-best-rk3288-or-s802

saying the RK3288 is more powerful.

Then googling, a few articles stated that the Nvidia shield was the most powerful.
There is no site that compares or runs test that is up to date.


Can someone help me? What is the best of the best? the fastest & most powerful Android Box.
Want it solely for lag free XBMC use (no gaming).

[RISCy Dude]

When it comes to the SoC, the Shield would seem to enjoy a consensus on being the most powerful. Your primary use of the device will determine which device is best for you.
$100 dollar or around there, RK3288 is the most powerful. But some feel other SoCs do better at handling video.
Power isn't everything in these devices.
Again, it really depends what a user's primary purpose is for the device.
Support on the S802 may be falling off. The S812 has succeeded it. The S912 will succeed the S812.
New devices come out every.....forever!

BTW Welcome to Freaktab.

[ultimatexbmc]

How long is a piece of string - or in this case how large is your wallet
We have tried many boxes and SOC's and from a price performance point of view we found the M8S hard to beat.

[clarkss12]

If kodi s all you want, then go for a device that supports OpenELEC

[PLZHeLPMEplz]

When it comes to the SoC, the Shield would seem to enjoy a consensus on being the most powerful. Your primary use of the device will determine which device is best for you.
$100 dollar or around there, RK3288 is the most powerful. But some feel other SoCs do better at handling video.
Power isn't everything in these devices.
Again, it really depends what a user's primary purpose is for the device.
Support on the S802 may be falling off. The S812 has succeeded it. The S912 will succeed the S812..

So power doesn't determine how well the video, stream & wifi connection will be? So is it the chip support?

How long is a piece of string - or in this case how large is your wallet
We have tried many boxes and SOC's and from a price performance point of view we found the M8S hard to beat.

The M8S only has 2GB of memory.
Wouldn't you need more memory to stream 1080p & play 4k video files smoothly without lag?

Also what is OpenELEC?

[RISCy Dude]

Different SoCs do some things better, while other SoCs do other things better. There is a general consensus, or shall I say, a rule-of-thumb, that between Amlogic and Rockchip, Amlogic for video, Rockchip for games. However both are quite capable of either duty. The Shield is said to do both very well....@ $200 for the entry-level model.

2GB of RAM for an Android device is the common "upgrade" option. Many have 1GB. A few offer 4GB(Nagrace, Ugoos, etc.). Regarding storage, most have 8GB(some less), many have 16GB and a few have 32GB. For Intel based Windows devices, 64GB or even 128GB are around. The Shield's top model has a 500GB drive. In my experience, I would generally opt for a 2GB/16GB+ model.

If you are new to the TV box world, please see here, the first four posts are relevant.

[Lurker]

Here is a review comparing the performance of a Tegra X1 processor in the NVidia Shield TV and an Intel i3 processor.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-tegra-x1&num=1

If $200 is a bit steep then the new Amazon Fire TV with MediaTek MT8173 seems to offer very decent performance at half the price. The RK3288, S812, S802, RK3368, S805 have generally lower performance (in decreasing order).

[xsirxx]

My question is, I have 3 RK3288 boxes and I still cannot find one that can stream 1080p(Bluray) and output DD/DTS/Atmos... Now that would be awesome! I can crunch low bitrate 1080p with them without fail.

[bluesmanuk]

Right now I would say that it is the Shield hands down.

[Lurker]

I found this article quite interesting regarding MediaTek's MT8173 and the future possibilities using TSMC's 16nm FinFET process.
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?se...doc_id=1326356

In practice, the Geekbench 3 scores for the latest MT8173 based Fire TV are slightly higher than mentioned ~1700 (single core) and ~3500 (multicore) versus ~500 and ~1500 respectively for the MXIII-G. Hopefully we will start to see better performing TV boxes in the not too distant future.

Geekbench 3 scores
https://browser.primatelabs.com/geek...93&q=Shield+TV
https://browser.primatelabs.com/geek...9C%93&q=MT8173
https://browser.primatelabs.com/geek...C%93&q=MXIII-G