ASRock Vision 3D 252B HTPC Review

Name: ASRock Vision 3D 252B HTPC
Brand: ASRock

by Marco Chiappetta — Wednesday, August 01, 2012, 10:50 AM EDT

Test System Configuration Notes: We compared the ASRock Vision 3D HTPC's performance to an array of other HTPC systems we've used in the past. We compared the Vision 3D to a number of AMD Zacate E-350 Processor-based platforms and a handful of other mobile platforms based upon Intel's Atom or NVIDIA's ION as well. The comparisons will show relative performance versus other low-power power platforms, but as you'll see, the Vision 3D HTPC is markedly more powerful than any of the other systems. In the absence of similarly configured mobile machines to be used for reference testing, we used performance data on hand from other HTPCs, which unfortunately do nt offer nearly as much performance.

HotHardware's Test Systems

Intel and AMD - Head To Head

System 1:
ASRock Vision 3D 252B
Core i5-2520M CPU
(2.5GHz Dual-Core)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M
2x4GB DDR3-1333
On-Board Ethernet
On-board Audio
2.5" WD Caviar Black HD
Windows 7 x64

System 2:
ASRock Vision 3D 137B
Core i3-370M CPU
(2.4GHz Dual-Core)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 425M
2x2GB DDR3-1066
On-Board Ethernet
On-board Audio
2.5" WD Caviar Black HD
Windows 7 x64

System 3:
Zotac Zbox HD AD03
Gigabyte E350N-USB3
AMD E-350 Zacate Processor
(1.6GHz - Dual-Core)
AMD Hudson IO Hub
2x2GB DDR3-1066
On-Board Ethernet
On-board Audio
2.5" Samsung HD
Windows 7 x64

System 4:
Intel Atom D525
(1.8GHz - Dual-Core)
Asus Eee PC1215N
2x2GB DDR3-1066
NVIDIA Ion 2
On-Board Ethernet
On-board Audio
2.5" Seagate HD
Windows 7 x64

Preliminary Testing with PCMark Vantage

Synthetic Benchmarks

First up, we ran our test systems through Futuremark’s latest system performance evaluation tool, PCMark Vantage. PCMark Vantage runs through a host of different usage scenarios to simulate different types of workloads including High Definition TV and movie playback and manipulation, gaming, image editing and manipulation, music compression, communications, and productivity. Most of the tests are multi-threaded as well, so the tests can exploit the additional resources offered by a multi-core CPU.

The ASRock Vision 3D 252B's Sandy Bridge CPU with Hyper-Threading (it a dual-core CPU capabile of processing 4 threads), 8GB of RAM, and relatively fast HD give it the ability to easily outpace the other, lower-powered systems in our DB of performance results.

Tags: Nvidia, Intel, Blu-ray, HTPC, 3D, ASRock

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com