Topic: ASUS Chromebox M075u (Read 808 times)

That's another really good idea and I'm not sure why I hadn't given it too much thought.  Probably basically because I'm a total noob at buying hardware and I'm finding the comparisons between prebuilt systems terribly confusing, but yes, I'll think carefully about this option.  And thanks for the link to your list of parts!

I'm not in a rush for this project, so it make sense to gather info and do some comparisons, etc.  I'll probably try to get something going before the end of the summer.

I think you could roll your own desktop and keep it sub $500 with a decent GPU.

Check out the wishlist i'm organizing to buy through Purse.io and you'll see prices aren't that high, and you could get a VERY good desktop for less than what you're looking to spend.

http://amzn.com/w/30DBZWYKX6JD

(Replace the nVidia card with a 750 Ti or an R7 and you're good to go considerably under $500).

You're right that there must be something different about them.  Looking at the product specifications though, the only difference I found was that the more expensive version had a row called "Grahics Coprocessor" which said "HD Intel" but the cheaper version didn't have this line.  I have to admit, I find this very confusing.  Thanks for the advice!  Let me know if you see anything else that differentiates these two boxes.Thanks for the link!  Just looking at that badass thing I can tell it's more than what I need (three fans!).  I agree, I'm not really trying to get into GPU mining, but I would like to (say) be able to transcode a 45 minute video in less than 24 hours (which is approximately what it takes on my laptop).  Or, say, watch an H265 movie without huge amounts of framedrop.I agree, I wouldn't be doing vanitygen everyday, but if I'm going to spend a little money on a desktop I'm not really hoping for the "high end", I'd just like to be somewhere above the very lowest end, as that's basically where I've always been with respect to computing hardware.  I'm trying to figure out if there's a sweet spot somewhere in the middle.

Thanks again!

I think your looking at two different machines.  Those are good chrome boxes that will run linux fine.  Could be a media machine lots of possibilities.

But you really want to get a dedicated GPU.  Just for example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?sdtid=7992957&SID=7097dbd451dd474182611a99ea14d64b&AID=10440897&PID=1225267&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16814202145&cm_sp=   will blow away CPU/onboard intel.   But it's hard to justify cost's anymore since GPU mining is pretty much dead.

I have a few 270X's I kept from GPU day's incase I wanted to do like vanity gen.  I have pulled them out once for vanity gen.  It sounds neat... but it is not something you will use often I will guess.

Thanks notlist3d.  I understand from your reply that opencl would work on this box, just not very quickly?  That's a step ahead of what I experienced on the ASUS zenbook.

Follow up, I also saw this ASUS chromebox: http://www.amazon.com/Asus-CHROMEBOX-M107U-ASUS-Desktop/dp/B00O1A4OBQ/ and it's listed as having the same chip i3-4010U, but it has an additional line in the specs "Grahpics Co Processor".  At least at first glance, this is the only difference between the two chromeboxes.  Do you think this second one has a "real" GPU?

I guess my goal here is to get an "okay" linux desktop.  I've been living for a long time cheap-o laptops and these function well for me 95% of the time.  The other 5% of the time I'm trying to compile a big program and I have to wait 10 minutes per build, or I'm playing agar.io and my CPU is maxxed out, or yah, maybe I want to do a vanitygen and a 5 character address is going to take 5 days.  Does this make sense?  I don't need a really great GPU, but if I'm going to spend some money on a desktop, I want to at least have something.  For the record, that ASUS zenbook I had was just a loaner, it was a great laptop, but it wasn't mine.  Mine (currently) is a three year old Acer Aspire One 722-bz545 (AMD C-50 APU).

I wonder if you have any suggestions, then, about a "real desktop".  I'd be running GNU/Linux (most likely debian) and I'd like to keep the cost < $500.

Thanks again!

The GPU is the important part in the openCL things.  This is some stock junk intel.

No it will not be great for mining or vanitygen.   Look into real desktops if you really need to do this kinda thing.  But it's hard to justify the GPU cost unless your a gamer or something and this is just on the side.

This isn't exactly a mining question, as I know that these days you need and ASIC for that.  However, I'm trying to figure out some stuff about hardware and I think you guys can answer some questions that I'm a little confused about.

I was looking at this ASUS chromebox which has an i3-4010U processor (with some kind of onboard HD 4400 graphics).   I've sen online that you can remove some screw and then flash whatever system you want, so I'd be running debian on it.  What I'm trying to figure out is if this kind of machine could run openCL stuff, like, for example, vanitygen-ocl.

In the past I had an ASUS zenbook which supposedly had an Intel HD gpu, but I couldn't actually use the GPU for gpu mining or OCL because apparantely it' wasn't the same thing as the "standalone" graphics card.  Is that coing to be the same deal on this chromebox?

Thanks for the insight, hardware gurus!