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

ASRock doesn't make any claims about the quietness of the system in their marketing material. We were pleasantly surprised upon looking at the noise reports. In the set of pictures below, a professional sound level detector was placed less than 2 ft away from the CoreHT, and the sound level measurements were taken in various HTPC scenarios. The unit has a noise level of less than 36 dB at full load (for both CPU and GPU). In this respect, it is actually similar in performance to the earlier SFF HTPCs from ASRock.

22.4 dB at Idle

27 dB during Disc Playback

35.5 dB at Full Load (Prime95 + Furmark)

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 around 62.8 W. At idle, the average power consumption was around 18 W.

These type of power consumption numbers have been enabled by ASRock's choice of going in for a notebook platform instead of a desktop configuration. This has resulted in a smaller form factor case design for the mini-ITX motherboard. Since there is not much heat to be dissipated, the cooling system is also appropriately small and silent.

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 CoreHT 252B has no issues in these two aspects. As long as the AC power adapter is connected to the system, the bundled MCE remote can be used to boot the system (even if the PC had been shut down previously). In order to shorten the boot times, ASRock supplies an Instant Boot utility. Using this, whenver the CoreHT is shut down, it boots up once again and shuts down before the power can be safely removed. Upon power up, the boot up is instantaneous. The MCE remote can also be used to bring the PC out of sleep mode.

Power users can also take advantage of the AXTU (ASRock eXtreme Tune Up) utility for greater overclocking control.

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. For the ideal I/O scenario, one probably needs to purchase a wireless keyboard / mouse combo.
 

Configuring XBMC for the ASRock CoreHT 252B Final Words
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  • ganeshts - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link

    There is a no-OS option. (in fact, that is what will be sold mostly)

    For Linux drivers.. well, let us not go down that road right now.
  • martajd - Sunday, September 4, 2011 - link

    Read the article. It CLEARLY says in the specifications chart "Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (Retail unit is barebones)"

    That means NO OS IS DEFAULT. It's not Asrock that has the stupidity.
  • DaveSimmons - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link

    Item#: N82E16856158025, that's pretty high for no Windows or blu-ray software.($87 for PowerDVD).
  • ganeshts - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link

    If this is anything like the Vision 3D, I bet the price will definitely go down, or there will be a rebate / combo deal of some sort to sweeten things up. I stand by what I said in the review.. if they get the price down to the Core 100's launch price, I will have no hesitation in recommending the unit.
  • ypsylon - Saturday, September 3, 2011 - link

    External power supply is instant kill for any HPTC system. What is the point of SFF if you have to use external PSU? You can't move the case without moving PSU.

    No thank you AsRock. Small Lian-Li cube will do nicely.
  • miahallen - Saturday, September 3, 2011 - link

    "The ASRock CoreHT 252B is primarily built out of notebook components, and it is not possible for the average enthusiast to build such a system with off-the-shelf components."

    Yes it is...I did about 3 months ago (with the H67 version) and I've been quite heppy with it.
    http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t228/miahallen/...
  • miahallen - Saturday, September 3, 2011 - link

    This is the low cost version w/o BluRay but with an SSD...more similar to what I built.
    http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t228/miahallen/...

    At only $400, it's a steal next to the version in this article.
  • ganeshts - Sunday, September 4, 2011 - link

    I only intended to convey that it is not possible for consumers to build a desktop with a mobile procsesor / mobile chipset.

    However, yes, you have an interesting build with a similar power profile. Andrew at MissingRemote also has a similar build reviewed: http://www.missingremote.com/review/intel-core-i3-... : This uses the more HTPC centric motherboard from Intel.
  • Lolimaster - Tuesday, September 6, 2011 - link

    Should be a better deal buying a E-350 APU/Mobo combo. Why have intel subpar image quality gpu?
  • ganeshts - Tuesday, September 6, 2011 - link

    350 is too weak. Higher end Llanos are good, but need some driver work in the common scenarios like 1080p60 AVCHD decode.

    Intel is pretty good for the average consumer. If you are a stickler for image and video quality, go with AMD, and if you want the best of freeware / open source software to do the work for you, go with NVIDIA.

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