Dell Zino HD 410 HTPC Review
by Ganesh T S on February 19, 2011 7:08 AM EST- Posted in
- HTPC
- Dell
- AMD
- Media Streamer
- ATI
The whole purpose of adding the discrete GPU to the Zino 410 was to make sure that the shortcomings of the integrated 4200 series GPU wouldn't be noticed. The Zino 410 provides only one option, namely, the Mobility 5450. How good is it?
We ran the 3D Mark Vantage and 3D Mark 06 benchmarks and the graphs below show how the Mobility 5450 fares when compared to the iGPU of the Core 100 and the GT 425M of the Vision 3D.
The Zino 410 comes in between the Core 100 and the Vision 3D in terms of 3D benchmarks. It is, in fact, closer to the Core 100. This further stresses the fact that the 5450 is only a very marginal improvement over the Intel integrated GPUs with respect to graphics performance.
However, the run-of-the-mill graphics performance is not of much concern to many HTPC users. HD video decoding offload is more important. The Mobility 5450 has the UVD2 decoder engine. UVD2 supports complete hardware decoding of all codecs except for MPEG2, Real Media, On2 codecs.
Here is where the downer comes in. While going through our media streamer test suite, we found that many 1080p60 H264 clips wouldn't play properly. We had protracted communication with both Dell and AMD, and it was one of the main sources of delay with respect to the publishing of this review. We waited quite a bit to see whether driver updates would fix the issue, but release after release went by without any improvement in the situation. After Catalyst 11.1, we gave up.
The short story is that the HD 5400 series (Cedar based) is qualified for content up to 1080p 24fps only. At that format all the video quality features are available with the exception of mosquito noise reduction and deblocking. Anything beyond that format is not qualified for the Mobility 5450. Even though some instances of that format (1080p30 or 1080p60 H264) may play back, it's not guaranteed that it will be smooth.
All in all, the Mobility 5450 falls short in its support for certain encodes when compared with its midrange and high end cousins, as well as the nVidia 4xx GPUs and Intel HD Graphics. Some of the benchmarks show that the graphics performance ought to be better than Intel HD Graphics. In the next section, we will see whether it is true in real world gaming.
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plewis00 - Saturday, February 19, 2011 - link
I agree with you and was about to post this myself.If someone really wants a 2.5" hard disk why can't they use an adapter and remove the existing 3.5" unit. I bought a 2TB hard disk the other day for £60 (I'm in the UK), but that same amount of money would buy you a 500 or 640GB 2.5" model so I know what I'd rather have.
I'd actually say rather than a complaint, Dell should actually be praised for fitting a 3.5" drive in there.
JNo - Saturday, February 19, 2011 - link
Absolutely agree. I think you're analysis that 2.5" would be better is disappointing Ganesh. And I highly doubt that an SSD boot drive option would be beneficial to many people. This is an HTPC after all and affordability is key for what is a secondary PC.I have an Xtreamer (google it) and it cost only £99 and plays every hi def file(s) I've chucked at it including mkv, ts, blu-ray file structures and much more and supports hi def sound outputting as well. It is fanless too. In fact unless you want PVR functionality / internet too, it makes more expensive HTPCs redundant.
Only disappointment is that it only fits a 2.5" drive and the largest (at the time) 500Gb drive I put in was as much as a 1.5TB drive eco/green drive. And the new 3.5" eco/green drives are just as quiet as their 2.5" brethren. I think most people savvy enough to know they need an HTPC tend to have very large music / video collections so size is a big deal.
ganeshts - Sunday, February 20, 2011 - link
The Caviar Black 750 GB is specified to have a power consumption at full load of 8.4W [ http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2879-701276.pdf ].The Scorpio Black 750 GB (2.5", 7200rpm) is specified to have a power consumption of 1.75W when active [ http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=13... ]
My belief is that the extra ~7W could have been devoted to a better discrete GPU rather than having a 3.5" hard drive.
Our well reviewed ASRock Vision 3D and Core 100 both have 2.5" hard drives, and I have hardly seen any reader / reviewers on other sites complain.
Also, people savvy enough to think they need a HTPC also have an external storage solution (storage array or NAS), and the hard disk on the HTPC is just a temporary 'staging' ground.
I still stand by my suggestion to Dell to move to a 2.5" hard drive for the next generation Zino.
Zoomer - Wednesday, March 2, 2011 - link
I agree with taltamir on this. There is simply no reason to use 2.5" drives when there is space for 3.5". Some may buy this and use local storage. Even if they don't it's still cheaper to put a 3.5" in.Noise, most if not all HDDs can be set to reduce noise. Acoustic Managemet or something like that.
The 2TB WD caviar green only requires 4.5 W when reading/writing. That's just 2.75 W, and barely worth considering.
Maybe you can push dell to give people a choice. WD Green, Caviar black, or the 2.5" black. Why not the momentus XT?
JWade - Saturday, February 19, 2011 - link
I got the 410 to upgrade from the 400hd, i like it alot better. i got the dual core one not the quad core. it does everything i need it to and then some.I cant hear it make any noise at all, even when playing games with it. I use it with my 42" tv.
something of note, Dell did make an atom version of the Zino too.
ganeshts - Sunday, February 20, 2011 - link
Yes, I remember the Atom Zino.. But it wasn't called the Zino HD. Thanfully they moved away from the anaemic Atom for their first Zino HD.The first Zino HD was the Zino 400 and this is the second generation.
Glad to hear you like the Zino 410. It is a pretty good system for the price, and depending on your usage scenario you probably won't even notice the shortcomings!
Bignate603 - Saturday, February 19, 2011 - link
I see a huge amount of HTPCs without the option for a TV tuner. For something that claims to be a HTPC it seems like a pretty blatant omission. It should at least be an upgrade you could order with it.Taft12 - Saturday, February 19, 2011 - link
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82...hvakrg - Sunday, February 20, 2011 - link
Well, if you use a good HTPC program like Mediaportal you don't need tuner in all your HTPCs, all you need is a TVserver. That can then feed TV to all your HTPC clients around the house. It's a great way to do it because you won't have to pull coax to all your rooms.myangeldust - Saturday, September 10, 2011 - link
HDHomeRun dual tuners. Placed near your TV antenna or in your coaxial closet and connected to your home network. Any TV in the house could become an HTPC by simply installing the tuner's device driver. Fully compatible with Windows Media Center.