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
HTPC enthusiasts are often concerned about the quality of pictures output by the system. While this is a very subjective metric, we have decided to take as much of an objective approach as possible. Starting with the Core 100 review in 2010, we have been using the HQV 2.0 benchmark for this purpose.
The HQV 2.0 test suite consists of 39 different streams divided into 4 different classes. The playback device is assigned scores for each, depending on how well it plays the stream. Each test was repeated multiple times to ensure that the correct score was assigned. The scoring details are available in the testing guide on the HQV website.
In the table below, we indicate the maximum score possible for each test, and how much the ASRock Vision 3D 252B was able to get. As mentioned in the previous section, we used NVIDIA Graphics Driver v301.24 for the benchmarking.
| HQV 2.0 Benchmark - ASRock Vision 3D 252B | ||||
| Test Class | Chapter | Tests | Max. Score | ASRock Vision 3D 252B (NVIDIA GT 540M) |
| Video Conversion | Video Resolution | Dial | 5 | 5 |
| Dial with Static Pattern | 5 | 5 | ||
| Gray Bars | 5 | 5 | ||
| Violin | 5 | 5 | ||
| Film Resolution | Stadium 2:2 | 5 | 5 | |
| Stadium 3:2 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Overlay On Film | Horizontal Text Scroll | 5 | 3 | |
| Vertical Text Scroll | 5 | 3 | ||
| Cadence Response Time | Transition to 3:2 Lock | 5 | 5 | |
| Transition to 2:2 Lock | 5 | 5 | ||
| Multi-Cadence | 2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCam Video | 5 | 5 | |
| 2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video | 5 | 5 | ||
| 3:2:3:2:2 24 FPS Vari-Speed | 5 | 5 | ||
| 5:5 12 FPS Animation | 5 | 5 | ||
| 6:4 12 FPS Animation | 5 | 5 | ||
| 8:7 8 FPS Animation | 5 | 5 | ||
| Color Upsampling Errors | Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP) | 5 | 5 | |
| Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE) | 5 | 5 | ||
| Noise and Artifact Reduction | Random Noise | SailBoat | 5 | 5 |
| Flower | 5 | 5 | ||
| Sunrise | 5 | 5 | ||
| Harbour Night | 5 | 5 | ||
| Compression Artifacts | Scrolling Text | 5 | 5 | |
| Roller Coaster | 5 | 5 | ||
| Ferris Wheel | 5 | 5 | ||
| Bridge Traffic | 5 | 5 | ||
| Upscaled Compression Artifacts | Text Pattern | 5 | 3 | |
| Roller Coaster | 5 | 3 | ||
| Ferris Wheel | 5 | 3 | ||
| Bridge Traffic | 5 | 3 | ||
| Image Scaling and Enhancements | Scaling and Filtering | Luminance Frequency Bands | 5 | 5 |
| Chrominance Frequency Bands | 5 | 5 | ||
| Vanishing Text | 5 | 5 | ||
| Resolution Enhancement | Brook, Mountain, Flower, Hair, Wood | 15 | 15 | |
| Video Conversion | Contrast Enhancement | Theme Park | 5 | 2 |
| Driftwood | 5 | 2 | ||
| Beach at Dusk | 5 | 2 | ||
| White and Black Cats | 5 | 2 | ||
| Skin Tone Correction | Skin Tones | 10 | 0 | |
| Total Score | 210 | 176 | ||
When compared with the other SFF HTPCs, the score doesn't look out-of-place.
However, we have seen NVIDIA GPUs scoring higher in earlier reviews. This is just an indicator of how new driver releases tend to break existing features. As we will see in the next section, there are a number of knobs in the driver which just don't work at all.
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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.