Presentation and question about the motherboard with integrated CPU

[kaiser77_1982]

Hello!

I am kaiser77_1982, some of you may know me from other forums or because I write about hardware and video games. I met you through a Telegram group and I decided to join.

Taking advantage of the fact that I am here, I am looking for a motherboard with an integrated CPU for the living room. It will only be used for watching movies, YouTube, platforms, browsing and little more. I have seen the Biostar a68n series, but it is complicated to buy and some Asrock models that are good, it is not what I am looking for, although I already accept suggestions from almost all types.

The base of the PC is that it consumes as little as possible and that it is passive so that it does not make noise, my wife has a super ear.

Thanks

PD: Does anyone know why Intel motherboards with Atom have disappeared in this way? I had two and now I see nothing.

[Sylver]

Hello, welcome @kaiser77_1982

I don't know if you have considered the option of the Intel Compute Stick, a kind of Raspberry (which would also be a valid option), but in this case with a more compact finish and directly aimed at the average domestic consumer.

For here I have seen something cheap, in case you want to take a look at it.

Best regards!

[cobito]

Welcome @kaiser77_1982, I know you from the Yorus (aka Ritman) group.

I have a couple of PCs with miniITX motherboards: an MSI N3150I ECO that I bought in 2016 and that's already been discontinued. I use it for watching movies and it's the worst of the worst. It's very unstable: it freezes, has erratic behavior and I think it even corrupts data. It's been this bad since day one and I've tried different memories. I've read that this happens to a lot of people (so it's not that my one is defective) and I honestly don't know why I didn't return it at the time. Since I only use it for that, I don't really care, but it's number 1 on the list to be retired as soon as something better is available.

The other one is an Asrock J4105-ITX that I bought a couple of years ago and use in a NAS. It should be more than enough for what you're looking for. In this case, I can't recommend this brand any more. The only drawback is that it doesn't allow 'legacy' booting (this is the fault of the Gemini Lake platform, not the motherboard manufacturer) but if you're going to use a relatively recent operating system, you won't have any problems.

I can't find mine anymore but there's the Asrock J4125B-IT, which is very similar (both are Genimi Lake but the processor on the J4125 has a bit more frequency than mine). The truth is that the market is scarce, yes. But if it's about brands, my limited experience says that Asrock is a good option for this type of motherboard.

[Yorus]

Hello @kaiser77_1982!. I am Ritman in the Retroinformática group. What I have as an HTPC is an Intel NUC with an Intel J3455 and for multimedia it works great and it doesn't make any noise. I have also had it configured to emulate, although I have only tried 4 things from 8, 16 bits and some MAME.