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Comment by j-kidd | Hacker News Reader

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j-kidd·

Yea, I am not sure if "quad-core Raspberry Pi" is that much of a selling point. CuBox is much more interesting with:

- gigabit ethernet

- e-sata port (with port multiplier)

- infrared receiver

- out of the box, already comes with a box

- comprehensive wiki for a development platform

By the way, a 150 Mbps wifi dongle is sold for about 5 USD here (I too was surprised by how cheap the wifi module is, and went to check the price list).

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I own a openrd platform, which isn't perhaps quite as up to date as the CuBox chipset, and it too has many of the features you mention.

But it is not a fast system. Gigabit ethernet? Sure, but good luck getting anywhere near that speed. Similar for the e-Sata port. Oh, sure, I can get a 60 mbps samba share up on the thing, but that caps out it's cpu.

The specifications for what it supports does not indicate what kind of performance it will have. The quad core Samsung processor will almost certainly dominate the Marvell unit's performance. Or maybe not: I don't have one. I've just been underwhelmed by what throughput Marvell has delivered me.

Any idea what bus the eSATA port is attached to? the DreamPlug is similar to the CuBox but the eSATA is hooked up internally via USB2, limiting its speed dramatically

It uses a Marvell Armada 510[1] SoC, which has a SATA port, so I assume its connected to that.

[1] http://www.marvell.com/application-processors/armada-500/

It says 3Gbps here:

http://www.solid-run.com/mw/index.php/CuBox_hardware_specifi...

I am just about to place an order. They finally have stocks, though the current price is 10 USD more compared to the pre-order price.

They do finally have stock? There was a thread just earlier this week where I mentioned this but there was a linked forum post where they've not been fulfilling preorders, etc.

Plus there's some straight up weird stuff on their Word doc exported "Spec Sheet".

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