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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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.