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
HTPC enthusiasts are rightly concerned about the noise factor, heat and power consumption, ease of usage and many other criteria. We will tackle each of these concerns one by one in this section.
Noise
While the Zino 410 is much better than both the ASRock Core 100 and Vision 3D in terms of noise levels, it is not the perfect ultra-quiet HTPC that some enthusiasts crave for. With performance comes the necessity to dissipate generated heat, and the Zino 410's capabilities and form factor mean that it can't be a passively cooled system.
Unfortunately, we don't have the exact noise levels for the Zino 410. However, listening to the Vision 3D, Core 100 and the Zino 410 separately in the same surroundings led me to the conclusion that the Zino 410 was the quietest of the lot.
Power Consumption
In order to get an idea of the power consumption numbers, the Prime95 and Furmark benchmarks were let run overnight to keep both the CPU and GPU completely loaded for an extended duration. Under these extreme conditions, we found the average power consumption to be 62.3 W. At idle, the average power consumption was 29.4 W.
While load power conditions are better than the Vision 3D, it is not as efficient as the Core 100. As for idle power consumption, the system trails both the Core 100 and the Vision 3D.
Ease of Use
HTPC enthusiasts are concerned about how easy it is for their system to come out of standby. Existence of HDMI handshake issues upon return from standby is also a deal breaker for many. Fortunately, the Zino 410 has no issues in these two aspects.
Within Windows, the MCE remote can be made to work with a variety of applications such as XBMC, MediaPortal, MPC-HC and of course, Windows 7 Media Center. Blu Ray players such as PowerDVD and ArcSoft TMT can also be controlled with the help of the MCE remote. The wireless keyboard / mouse combo also supplants the remote for extended functionality.
One of the main drawbacks of pre-built PCs which come with Windows pre-installed is the bloatware. After the review unit finished booting up for the first time, I noticed that there were 67 processes active and 1.13 GB of RAM already utilized. On numerous occasions in course of the review, I was pestered to activate my McAfee subscription and also utilize Dell Backup and other such add-ons. It would have been nice to have some sort of switch to turn off the bloatware completely. Reinstalling the OS is also an option.
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funtasticguy - Saturday, February 19, 2011 - link
Great and thorough review as always. I just purchased one of the these just yesterday when I noticed their new upgraded chips (P960 & P360). Anyway, does anyone know how easy is it to upgrade the hard drive?ganeshts - Sunday, February 20, 2011 - link
Hard drive upgrading should be pretty straightforward. Just make sure the drive you put in doesn't dissipate more than 8.4 W under full load (just to ensure you don't run into issues with overheating of the unit)tkpmep - Saturday, February 19, 2011 - link
I bought a Zino 410 a few months ago that was configured almost exactly the same way as is the review unit, and found that it came without an IR receiver for a Windows Media Center Remote. It appears that you have to purchase Dell's own Media Center remote when ordering the unit in order for them to install the IR receiver. I now have to use a USB receiver to control WMC. This is disappointing. Also, the USB receiver for the wireless keyboard works a lot better when plugged into a port in front of the unit than into the rear. Apart from this, its a very nice machine.pirspilane - Sunday, February 20, 2011 - link
just get a USB extension cable from monoprice.comsoftdrinkviking - Sunday, February 20, 2011 - link
It seems a little funny at the top of the unboxing page.The paragraph that starts... Of all the SFF HTPCs I have seen, the Dell Zino 410 HD HTPC has the best industrial design....
seems like it should be the first paragraph.
because as it is now, the first paragraph ends with... Apart from the main Zino 410 unit, the package also contains:
but then it starts another paragraph.
seems like they got reversed.
hvakrg - Sunday, February 20, 2011 - link
Ok, so one could buy this and then upgrade the graphics by purchasing a new graphics card on ebay?http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5650-DD...
ganeshts - Monday, February 21, 2011 - link
Need to handle the TDP properly. I think the 5650 is rated for 15-19W, while the 5450 is 11W max. If you don't game at all, it should be pretty OK to get past the video decoder limitations.leftyleno - Sunday, February 20, 2011 - link
$90 SilverStone Aluminum/Steel Micro ATX HTPC Computer Case GD05B$80 AMD Athlon II X3 450 Rana 3.2GHz
$88 Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
$60 SAMSUNG Black Blu-ray Drive SATA Model SH-B123L LightScribe Support
$50 4 gig g skill ram
$55 Microsoft Wireless Comfort Desktop 5000 Keyboard and Mouse Set - Black
$80 Radeon hd 5670
$54 SeaSonic S12II 380B 380W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
$100 ASUS M4A88TD-M/ USB3 SATA 3 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
$100 Windows
$20 Intel 622AN.HMWWB Mini PCI Express 6200 Centrino Advanced-N Wireless Adapter
=$ 780
Beat that Dell!
GeorgeH - Sunday, February 20, 2011 - link
SilverStone GD05B Dimensions:5.91"x17.32"x12.79", 1300 cubic inches
Del Zino 410 Dimensions:
3.4"x7.8"x7.8", 200 cubic inches
The Dell is well over six times smaller.
Radeon 5670 Power Consumption ~ 60W
Zino 410 Power Consumption ~ ~60W
The entire Dell system consumes as much power as one component.
Not only did Dell already "beat that", they did so by a very large margin.
geok1ng - Sunday, February 20, 2011 - link
"$80 AMD Athlon II X3 450 Rana 3.2GHz"If you wanna do this, do it the right way; use an e series CPU from AMD for better thermals, or simply go the i3 way.
"$54 SeaSonic S12II 380B 380W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply"
That is A LOT of unused power, simply go the picoPSU way. Better thermals and small form factory. A well built sistem would use a notebook power brick to save space and move heat generation away from the SFF case.
"$100 ASUS M4A88TD-M/ USB3 SATA 3 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard""
With AMD integrated graphics, i would rather use a custom cooling solution and overclock the hell out of the IGP. 900Mhz core is not an impossible goal for 785G and better IGPs. AND there are smaller ITX MOBOs for this plataform.