ASRock's High-End Vision 3D 252B HTPC Review
by Ganesh T S on May 7, 2012 6:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- Sandy Bridge
- HTPC
- GT 540M
- NVIDIA
Before proceeding to the business end of the review, let us take a look at some power consumption numbers. We measured power drawn at the wall when the unit was idle, one hour after subjecting the unit to Prime95 and Furmark simultaneously and when playing back a 1080p24 Blu-ray movie from the optical drive with HD audio bistreaming. In all cases, the Wi-Fi was active (no wired Ethernet). A wireless keyboard and mouse was also connected to the unit.
| ASRock Vision 3D 252B Power Consumption | |
| Idle | 20.1 W |
| Prime95 + Furmark (Full loading) | 109.2 W |
| 1080p24 Blu-ray Playback using CyberLink PowerDVD 12 | 33.2 W |
We are a little worried about the full loading power consumption being more than what the power supply is rated for, as this was not something we observed in the review of the first generation Vision 3D. [Update: Many readers have pointed out that the efficiency of the PSU has to be taken into account. If the efficiency is lower than 82.4%, then, the observed consumption numbers are fine]. That said, it is highly unlikely that users will stress the unit to that extent in day-to-day usage.
The thermal solution used in the Vision 3D 252B is the same as the one used in the Vision 3D 137B. We had already covered the thermal performance in detail in the previous review, and I found no discernible difference in the actual performance of the two units. Full loading produces less than 35 dB of noise, and this is as good as what one can get with an actively cooled system.
We have had the Vision 3D 252B review unit in-house for more than five months, and it has actually served as a testbed in a number of our reviews. ASRock's units have always been reliable in my experience, and the Vision 3D 252B has been used as the primary HTPC in my setup ever since it came in. From this standpoint, the Vision 3D 252B deserves our recommendation as much as the original Vision 3D 137B.
So, why did we have this inordinate delay in publishing the review of the Vision 3D 252B? Simply put, ASRock had made us set our expectations quite high after the Vision 3D 137B. Instead of delivering on the same scale, what we have with the Vision 3D 252B is just an evolutionary update. This is further weakened by the fact that the GT 540M and the first generation's GT 425M belong to the same family, with the former just being an overclocked version. The memory type and bus width are also the same, as is the number of shaders. Increasing the primary disk drive size (from 500 to 750 GB) and the amount of RAM (from 4 to 8 GB) was just keeping up with the latest industry standards. In addition, to really get excited about the Vision 3D 252B, SSDs as primary disk drives or at least as a caching drive should have been utilized. When Zotac can introduce a mSATA SSD in their low-end offering (ZBOX Nano XS), it is not clear why ASRock didn't go in for something similar.
In conclusion, the ASRock Vision 3D 252B is an ideal alternative to the Vision 3D 137B, but the updates are not revolutionary enough for us to give it the same plaudits as what we gave to the first generation version. That said, if ASRock can get the pricing down on this to somewhere around the $750 - $850 range, the system would definitely win in the price-performance aspect. We hope ASRock builds upon its solid foundation to deliver a more attractive system down the line. With Ivy Bridge and Kepler, things are looking good. Now, it is just up to ASRock to design a HTPC oriented motherboard for the next generation version later this year.
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LoneWolf15 - Wednesday, May 9, 2012 - link
As nice as it looks, I'll pass.Cool PC, bro --but there are options that will get this job done equally well, for far less. Ones that don't have Asrock's track record for awful customer support if something goes wrong (having owned one of their high-end mainboards briefly, I experienced that personally).
Less expensive options have desktop CPU upgrade options too. The mobile Sandy Bridge systems currently out aren't upgradeable to mobile Ivy Bridge, so I doubt this is, either.
cjmccarthy72 - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
I almost dare not admit to owning one of these- I can imagine the comments especially from the build your own brigade....But I got one just before Christmas and it is a real box of joy. I stuck a SSD from my previous HTPC inside it and this goes like the wind. Large photo, music and movie collection load really quick in WMC. Streams HD media with ease. Extremely quiet- the fans on my plasma are more audible!
Very small- and yet it is truly a one box solution- despite this review I can play most games like Street Fighter IV at full spec on it.
I live in tiny city centre flat and so yes it is expensive, but it beats having a laptop or desktop on the floor, taking up space. Paired with a soundbar and HD tv it means very little space is taken up with my equipment and so my wife is happy. It means that my AV cabinet is now taken up with more family friendly boxes- Scrabble, Monopoly, Battleships!
Last, but not least, it has Blu-Ray- now if only Windows 8 supported it natively....
allensays - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
I can do the same things with my similarly spec'd Asus K73S laptop, then unplug it, go out on the deck or take it to the beach......For much LESS $.
What a waste.
cjmccarthy72 - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
I'm happy for you- no beach or deck where I am I am afraid- & lots of rain at the moment here unfortunately... but also no USA Amazon so no "similarly spec'd Asus K73S laptop". Our Amazon has listed only an Asus K73S- but this only has an i3 cpu, dvd only, 4gb ram only, 320gb hard-drive only - all for $852 equivalent price in dollars. So you clearly have the better deal your end.I have a company laptop which sounds like a jet taking off so I like the silence of this HTPC but I also use it as my PVR so want it hooked up all the time- yet hidden away without my family needing to plug it in and hook it up. + I can do some limited upgrades with it. My last HTPC, a Sony VGX-XL, was also relatively expensive- but I had it for over 5 years before I sold it and so thought that was a reasonable investment.
But clearly for some people this would be a waste- I agree- no argument. However as an owner I thought I would add an opinion about this HTPC, as the majority of comments here only deal with the price.
iq100 - Thursday, May 24, 2012 - link
There are better alternatives to the $50 JRiver MediaCenter game. Did you know that JRiver will charge you again and again for each new release? Worse is their censorship. Criticize them, post about alternatives, and you will be BANNED for life. And they will get their 'commercial friends' to do the same. These folks are NOT like anandtech. They are not about sharing ideas. They add on free GNU softward without embracing the spirit of open source code. They are about commercial money wars. If they were Egypt, or Iran, or Iraq, the would kill your right to speak.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltoQwSpHQBA
iq100
the best way to delete an idea is to post one of your own.
ix400 - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
Or is there an alternative tool for finding out the exact refresh rate of the display?iq100 - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
With MPC-HC:http://www.homecinema-hd.com/autofrequency_en.html
iq100
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltoQwSpHQBA
ix400 - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
... but this tool doesn't show me a precise value of the refresh rate that is actually set.iq100 - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
>http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/java.awt/screen_Sc...You can do this in java:
http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/java.awt/screen_Sc...
iq100
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltoQwSpHQBA
shurik_1 - Thursday, August 2, 2012 - link
try to create couple of dozen gig archive on another PC. create a parity set. corrupt a few bits. transfer to Vision 3D. try to repair and see for yourself what happens...I have complained to ASRock about this and was forced to send entire PC for repairs (no they do not refund shipping costs you have to swallow it). Only change is that BIOS now is 1.10c instead of 1.10. A friend of mine managed to get from their support the actual BIOS without shipping back and indeed it solved his issues as well.
Now I try to update memory to 16GB and the issue is back. Had to go back to 8GB. It's been over a month since I reported this new issue to them and still no fix.
Note that they never acknowledged the issue and never posted updated BIOS to their site. Customers data gets silently corrupted meanwhile...
Other than that is has everything I wanted in HTPC.