Hi

 

I’m thinking of buying a more powerful TV box, and I see that everyone recommends Rockchip. However, when I look at performance, I notice that the S905X3 has much more power than an RK3566 and is also cheaper. There are comments that development for Amlogic is stalled, but new versions continue to be released from what I can

see. I only want it for setting up a Pi-hole and some Dockerized applications. Am I making a mistake if I go for an S905X3? Currently, I have an S905X, and although it was a bit challenging, it’s working quite well

 

 

General recommendation: Do not buy tvboxes.

https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_FAQ/#i-have-a-tv-boxtablet-from-insert-random-vendor-can-i-use-armbian-on-it

as an experienced TvBox GUI,
for the sake of your sanity: keep out of TVbox!

 

Banana Pi will launch BPI-M5 Pro with Rockchip RK3576

it will be an great Start point.....

If you don't need GPIOs and you're not a developer: don't buy SBCs as long as their prices are higher than the TV box. For the same price, you can buy a mini PC and it will be better than SBC.

 

I advise you to buy a TV box on SOC s905x3. 1) You will be able to install Linux for your purposes. 2) As well as being able to use an android set-top box, amlogic is better in this regard.

 

 

 

P.S.

I believe that 90% of users do not need SBC, since they do not use GPIO, camera, ports for connecting the screen and the like.

Many users need a cheap headless server. There are high-quality and inexpensive TV boxes for these purposes. In addition, for the price of banana pi m5, you can buy a mini PC that will work faster.

 

SBC is a device for developers. For those who then make TV boxes and tablets. For ordinary users, SBC is unnecessary.

The SBC manufacturer needs to pay attention to the user's need, which is:

1. SD card, emmc or M2.

2.LAN 1000/100

3. Wi-fi/BT

4. USB 3.0

5. 2/4/8 GB RAM

 

The rest 90% of users do not need and therefore they will buy either a TV box or a mini PC as it is more profitable for the price

Edited June 25, 20242 yr by Energokom

@threpwood Since I'm the current maintainer of the Armbian amlogic TV Box builds I may be biased in my response.

 

I will first state the official Armbian position which is that TV Boxes are crap and not supported.  (This is often the case and you may find that you purchase something really cheap and it doesn't work with Armbian at all - this can be for any number of reasons, from TV boxes generally have the cheapest components, often two 'identical' boxes will have completely different components, etc).

 

But, to address your original question, between the aml s905x3 and rk3566 I would recommend that you go with s905x3.  That CPU is now many years old, which means its support within mainline linux is pretty mature.  Whereas the rk3566 is relatively new and the mainline linux support is still being worked on.  Also, while armbian has community builds for the older amlogic cpus and the older rockchip cpus (aml-s9xx-box,  rk32xx-box, rk3318-box) there is only one community build for the h96-tvbox-3566 which is currently being worked on - other rk3566 boxes will be very hit or miss (but there is active work on getting more supported (search the forums for information).

 

Now having said that, you need to be willing to deal with the limitations of the amlogic tv box builds (https://forum.armbian.com/topic/16976-status-of-armbian-on-tv-boxes-please-read-first), which I suspect you are based on the fact that you already appear to be using the armbian amlogic builds for an older box, but I mention here for completeness for others who may stumble across this post.

 

Finally in my basic performance tests the s905x3 show that it is almost twice as fast as the older s905x.  But neither is what I would call fast, but for general server type services, they do a fine job.  I have an s905x2 box that hosts a few production websites and it is fine for that purpose.

 

Thank you all for all  your responses. I finally bought a s905x3, h96 max x3,  and all the hours and headaches spent with the s905x have greatly simplified the installation of the new tv box. for my needs, I don't need an sbc, at least for now.