If it helps, I recently went from the POS breakout that came with my OmioCNC to a UC400-ETH (about $200 from their Oz distributor), and an $8 breakout board from fleaBay. Already had Mach3 and just switched over, still considering throwing another hundred at the UCCNC software but holding off until there's a lull in the project queue so I can spend a bit of decent time getting used to it.
The controller is an ethernet job. Grabbed a crappy old windows XP laptop out of the back of the pile in the back of the "may come in handy" shelf so that bit I consider to be free And off we go!