Most users of TV boxes will do just fine with 2 GB RAM, especially with lower end ARM Cortex A53 systems, but if you have somewhat low processing needs, but high memory requirements, MXR Pro TV box powered by Rockchip RK3328 quad core Cortex A53 processor, and running Android 7.1 comes with 4GB RAM, and 32GB storage.
MXR PRO 4K TV box specifications:
- SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz with Mali-450MP2 GPU
- System Memory – 4GB DDR3
- Storage – 32 GB eMMC flash + SD card slot
- Video Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz with HDR10 and HLG support, 3.5mm AV port (composite)
- Video Codec – 4K VP9, H.265 and H.264. 1080p VC-1, MPEG-1/2/4, VP6/8
- Audio – Via HDMI, AV port (stereo audio), and 3.5mm coaxial S/PDIF jack
- Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, single band 802.11 b/g/n WiFi
- USB – 3x USB 2.0 ports, 1x USB 3.0 port
- Misc – IR receiver, blue/red LED for power status
- Power Supply – 5V/2A
- Dimensions – 12 x 12 x 2.4 cm
Maybe one use case of the extra memory could have been TV BOX + NAS via the USB 3.0 port, but while they decided to spent extra for memory and storage, they kept the cheapest networking options possible with Fast Ethernet, and 2.4GHz WiFi. So that’s not ideal for that use case. That means the only option – that I know of – with RK3328, 4GB RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, and USB 3.0 is still ROCK64 development board.
MXR PRO TV box is sold on DHGate for $67.98 with shipping by DHL. That website also offers wholesale discount, with the price dropping to $49.09 per unit for orders of 100 devices or more. Note that the title on DHgate mentions RK3228 processor, but in the description it’s mostly RK3328, and a listing on Alibaba confirms the specs.
Via AndroidPC.es
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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The most expensive ‘Alfawise Z28 Pro’ on Gearbest should also support GbE: ‘The high-end version ( 2G RAM + 16G ROM ) has gigabit interfaces, with dual-band 2.4G + 5.8G WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0’ (GbE and SDIO Wi-Fi are mutually exclusive with RK3328 so wireless capabilities are most probably realized via USB)
BTW: A NAS with a fast storage implementation doesn’t need more DRAM.
@tkaiser
If you are playing a video in Kodi, and at the same somebody else transfer a file from SAMBA, you should certainly need some extra memory, if only for the buffers, than when just playing the same video without file transfer.
How much is the question. Considering most NAS work well enough with 512MB it might not be too much.
@cnxsoft
Older NAS boxes have even only 128MB or 256MB. RAM on a NAS is only good for buffering and caching (with some implementations even the naming indicates that: ZFS filers call physical memory ‘ARC cache’ and that’s the reason why the ZFS boxes we install at customers in the meantime have 256GB). For home usage scenarios caching isn’t that important unlike in professional situations so the only real use case for huge amounts of RAM on NAS boxes is when network storage is way faster than storage performance (think of Allwinner USB2/GbE combinations) since then sequential writes happen at network speed as long as the amount of data fits into physical memory (used as buffer).
Huge amounts of RAM on consumer devices could these days be needed for virtualization/containerization (like it’s done on the RealTek TV boxes where an OpenWRT runs in parallel to Android) but for everything else I doubt it’s ‘necessary’ unless there’s real memory shortage and swapping starts to happen. In Linux and most probably Android too there’s a simple tool than can answer all these questions: vmstat. Put the values into monitoring (eg RPi-Monitor), let nice graphs draw and it will become obvious that it’s all about buffers/caches and no real memory shortage.
OTOH there are memory leaks in applications and app behaviour can be ‘selfish’ (trying to allocate as much RAM as possible). We have to deal with a commercial database at customers having a memory leak and starting to behave strangely when starting to use more than ~3.5 GB RAM. Simple solution: put this thing into a VM with only 3 GB memory assigned and it starts to realize memory shortage on its own and behaves well running for months now while on systems with 4GB or more available DRAM it ran into instabilities and we had to restart it automatically every week to avoid that (less memory –> less problems 😉 )
keep away from rockchip
no support and crappy rom
am logic better custom roms
expect rockchip to be dead bisness soon
@JoeBlue99
Rockchip has not been the best option for TV boxes, so far but they are making progress.
Amlogic has been better as you pointed out.
However, the company is not going anywhere, as their processors are also integrated into other products like ChromeBooks, tablets, robots, and so on.
@cnxsoft
I do think that it fair to say that Rockchip in the TV box market have not really made progress in the many years that they have been around and because of their often closed sources policy and consistent lack of decent firmware from the start, it puts devs at a great disadvantage in respect of really improving them.
This has allowed AmLogic to dominate the market and perhaps, as has been muted before, they will exit this particular market.
It’s a shame because they do produce some excellent SOC’s but fall down every time when it comes to making the best use of it.
@PhilS
AFAIK RK3328 is their first SoC made specifically for TV boxes, the others are multiple use for tablets, chromebooks, etc…
Rockchip processors will work much better with Android 7.x + Kodi 18, as they are now using standard APIs through their Media Module Platform (MPP) module -> https://github.com/rockchip-linux/mpp
A5X Max is another model with 4GB RAM, but still only 10/100M Ethernet: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/2017-A5X-Max-Android-7-1-TV-Box-Rockchip-RK3328-Quad-Core-WIFI-Set-Top-Box/1817071_32824618581.html
Rockchip RK3066 and a Rockchip chip in some casting sticks did well, then Rockchip had video problems with the RK3188 and started selling a slower RK3188T, which sellers sold falsely claiming it was the faster RK3188. Both still had the video bug. Then they sold expensive SoC chips with heat problems. That all helped cost them TV box market share. INMO
Yet other RK3328 models with 4GB RAM. Likely just a name difference, as the casing and ports look to be the same as MXR PRO:
* H96 III for $56.50 @ https://www.aliexpress.com/item/h96-III-Android-7-1-TV-Box-RK3328-Quad-Core-64bit-Cortex-A53-4GB-32GB-USB/32833308051.html
* MX10 for $49.99 @ https://www.geekbuying.com/item/MX10-Android-7-1-2-RK3328-4GB-32GB-TV-Box-386668.html
SCISHION V88 Paino TV Box 4GB RAM, 16 GB FLASH $45 with GBV88PA coupon:
https://www.gearbest.com/tv-box/pp_1064854.html?wid=21