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
The small form factor (SFF) HTPC market has been steadily growing over the last few years. As mobile processors become more and more powerful, it is becoming easier for users to be satisfied with their performance even in desktop configurations.
The DIY HTPC crowd has a marked preference for mini-ITX motherboards and cases. However, the excessive TDP of desktop CPUs results in complicated thermal designs and noisy results. Thermal designs for systems with mobile CPUs with 35W TDPs are fairly straightforward and not very noisy. In fact, it is even possible to create systems which are fully passively cooled.
ASRock has three HTPC families catering to the entry level, mid-range and high-end markets. While the ION based HTPCs form the entry level (and have since been discontinued), the Core series serves the mid-range and the Vision series caters to the high-end. Today, we will be looking in detail at the Vision 3D 252B, the second generation Vision 3D series HTPC from ASRock. First off, let us take a look at the configuration of the review unit sent to us by ASRock
ASRock CoreHT 252B HTPC Specifications | |
Processor |
Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5-2520M (2 x 3.00 GHz (3.20 GHz Turbo), 32nm, 3MB L2, 35W) |
Chipset | Intel Cougar Point HM65 |
Memory | 2 x 4 GB DDR3-1333 |
Graphics |
NVIDIA GT 540M (1 GB VRAM) 650 MHz / 1300 MHz / 900 MHz |
Intel HD Graphics 3000 650 MHz / 1.3 GHz (Turbo) |
|
Hard Drive(s) |
750 GB 7200RPM 2.5" HDD (Western Digital Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT) |
Optical Drive | Blu-ray/DVDRW Combo |
Networking |
Gigabit Ethernet 802.11b/g/n (2T2R Atheros AR9287 in AzureWave AW-NE121H mini-PCIE card) |
Audio |
Microphone and headphone/speaker jacks Capable of 5.1/7.1 digital output with HD audio bitstreaming (optical SPDIF/HDMI) |
Front Side |
Power button IR Receiver MMC/SD/MS/MS Pro Card Reader Slot loading Blu-ray/DVDRW optical drive 2 x USB 3.0 Ports Headphone and mic jacks |
Right and Left Sides | - |
Rear Side |
AC Adaptor input Optical SPDIF and analog audio jacks RJ-45 connector (1 x GbE LAN) 2 x USB 3.0 Ports Kensington Lock Vent for airflow 1 x DL-DVI-I 1 x eSATA 1 x HDMI 1.4a 4 x USB 2.0 |
Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (Retail unit is barebones) |
Extras |
THX TruStudio Audio Certification IR receiver and MCE remote |
Dimensions | 20 cm x 20 cm x 7 cm |
Pricing | Approx. £ 830 / $1190 |
ASRock has three configurations of the Vision 3D 2nd Gen series available. While the 252B comes with a 750 GB hard drive and 8 GB of RAM, the 245B and 241B come with a 500 GB hard drive and 4 GB of RAM. The 245B uses a Core i5-2450M procesor while the 241B uses a Core i5-2410M. Other specifications remain the same.
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