ASRock Vision HT: Ivy Bridge Carries the SFF HTPC Forward
by Ganesh T S on November 12, 2012 3:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- ASRock
- HTPC
- Ivy Bridge
General Performance Metrics
The ASRock Vision HT 321B is basically a notebook solution. It wouldn't make sense to compare it with full blown desktop Ivy Bridge solutions (or for that matter, any system with a power consumption of more than 100 W). In the comparative benchmarks provided in the rest of this review, we will provide the scores obtained by the Vision HT 321B and other similar SFF HTPC solutions.
Windows Experience Index
This metric is often considered meaningless, but we feel it serves as an indicator of what could be the bottleneck in a system for pre-built HTPCs. Surprisingly, it is not the HD 4000 GPU which is responsible for the score of the system. Both the RAM and the hard disk weigh in at 5.9.
Compared to the CoreHT 252B, the graphics department moves up from 6.4 to 6.5, but the rest of the scores (including that of the primary hard disk) remain the same.
Miscellaneous Performance Metrics
The graphs below give an idea of where the ASRock CoreHT 252B stands with respect to performance when compared with other SFF HTPCs. PCMark Vantage's PCMark score gives a general idea of the system's capability.
We also ran the 3D Mark Vantage and 3D Mark 06 benchmarks and the graphs below show how the Intel HD Graphics 4000 fares when compared to the GPU capabilities of other pre-built SFF HTPCs.
Intel HD Graphics 4000 is quite an upgrade over the HD Graphics 3000 in the CoreHT 252B, but it still doesn’t manage to beat the GT 425M in the first generation Vision 3D. In terms of the PC-centric scores, the Vision HT scores slightly less than the CoreHT 252B from last year, mainly because of the 5400 rpm drive which has replaced the 7200rpm version.
In addition to the above synthetic benchmarks, a couple of common HTPC workloads were also benchmarked. We have some data on the x264 encoding performance using the i5-3210M. Note that we are unable to utilize QuickSync for this test because QuickSync is unable to provide any support for accelerating x264 encode.
Given the similarities between the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge architectures, and the fact that the Core i5-2520M and Core i5-3210M operate at the same clock speeds, it is not surprising to find that there is almost no difference in the x264 benchmark results for the CoreHT 252B / Vision3D 252B and the Vision HT 321B.
An estimate of how well WinRAR performs, particularly with respect to processing split archives, wraps up this section. To evaluate this, we take a 4.36 GB MKV file, compress it in the 'Best' compression mode into a split archive (97.1 MB each), which results in 44 files on the hard disk. The time taken to decompress this split archive is then recorded. The performance in this benchmark is heavily influenced by the hard disk in the system. Despite the 5400rpm disk, the Vision HT actually manages to deliver results similar to what we got for the last generation HTPCs with 7200rpm disks.
We have deliberately refrained from dealing with gaming benchmarks in this review. Serious gaming enthusiasts know that Intel's integrated GPU is not going to pass muster. For readers interested in finding out how good Intel's HD Graphics 4000 fares in our gaming benchmark, I would suggest looking at Jarred's mobile Ivy Bridge launch piece.
In terms of video quality, we reran the HQV 2.0 benchmarks, but found no discernible differences when compared with what was obtained with the Ivy Bridge launch drivers.
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Death666Angel - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
I had a WD TV (the first one I think) and it always annoyed me that it could not decode DTS, which meant that I did not have dual audio for most of my library. It also lacked menu support and Blu Ray support. The menu was terribly slow and browsing a somewhat larger HDD was just awful.I'm sure those boxes have come a long way, but that was the point where I decided I would much rather go all in and have something that I know handles everything I throw at it in one way or another, than to have something that is cheaper and smaller, but worry about whether or not it will play everything I have the way I want it and be burdened by somewhat lacking software/firmware support.
Easy browsing of the web and games are the added bonus and I always have a good back up PC in case one of them breaks and someone needs a quick replacement.
If your set up has never failed you with a film you had, awesome. I have been disappointed by it too much to go back. :)
Jaybus - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
I have two WD-Live boxes and they do have their use. A PC brings several things to the table.To begin with, it brings adaptability. My biggest complaint with set top boxes in general is that it puts you at the mercy of the manufacturer for software fixes / features. When any of the online services change something, it may be months before an update is available. A HTPC is far more adaptable in terms of software.
Another area is remotes. The WD remote is sluggish and is an oddball format that hardly any third party remotes can emulate.
I can see why someone wouldn't care if they don't wish to play games. But it is damn handy to have real surfing capability along with a keyboard and mouse. Is there anything else it beats the set top box in besides surfing and games? Of course! It can do almost anything that a laptop can do! It essentially is a laptop.
prdola0 - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
Atom+ION might be quite slow, but for SFF HTPC usage, it served me quite well. I've been using it for the past two years and it still does the job. Of course it's not a gaming machine - it can't handle anything more demanding than TESIV: Oblivion with low details, but for casual Steam games like Machinarium, Worms Reloaded etc. it's completely sufficient. You shouldn't bash the Atom+ION combo so much. After all, it was the one thing that made this from factor popular, in my opinion.Death666Angel - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
Kinda sad that AsRock does not provide a unit that has an AMD APU inside it. I don't think many HTPC uses are limited by single threaded performance and the better iGPU can make a difference when playing games on the big TV (I use my A6 Llano HTPC as a console sometimes). The only thing I could think of to stop the use of an AMD APU is power consumtion. Pity AMD chooses way too high voltages (I dropped mine from 1.4xxV to 1.15V at max turbo).ericore - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
If you do the math, it costs them about 450$-475$ to build, but you only get a dual core CPU (TRAY: $225.00). Since Intel is charging so much for a mobile dual core, you might as well get the quad core for just under 300$. The whole system retails for 700$. Even at 600$, it would still be a crappy deal. A good deal would include 8 GB of RAM, and quad core CPU for 670$. To top off this shitty deal of theirs, they give you a piece of crap power supply adapter, and cheap plastic enclosure. Apple gives you a solid enclosure and a solid adapter, and ships with the same stuff for 599$.ericore - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
This AMD system is much better value; complete build 250$. I would just wait for Jaguar since current E-350 isn't quite HTPC prime yet.joetekubi - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
Form factor is great, performance would fit my needs, but just a little too procey.I may go for this 6-8 months from now when they version the platform and the old ones
are available for (much) less.
valnar - Wednesday, November 14, 2012 - link
How quiet is it? Does the fan speed up on load? Turn off on idle? What?johnny_boy - Sunday, November 18, 2012 - link
The product isn't bad but compared to a premium machine like a mac mini, the price of the ASRock makes no sense.jeffkibuule - Thursday, November 22, 2012 - link
Mac Mini only has integrated graphics. This system does not.