ASRock Vision 3D 252B HTPC Review

For our next set of tests, we moved on to some in-game benchmarking with Left 4 Dead 2 and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. When testing low-power platforms with L4D2 or ET:QW, we dialed the image quality settings down to medium quality settings and tested at various resolutions. Since these are more entry-level game tests on highly mobile platforms or platforms equipped with mobile parts, we left anti-aliasing turned off and image quality settings set from moderate to high levels where possible.

We've got a couple of different things going on in these game tests. Fist, keep in mind the GeForce GT 540M in the Vision 3D 252B and the GT 425M in the older Vision 3D PC we looked at are both 96 CUDA core GPUs. The GeForce GT 540M and 425M only differ in their clock speeds, with the 540M being the faster of the two (1120MHz vs. 1344MHz.) We also think the newer drivers and higher-clocked system memory on the newer 252B HTPC help it out here, particularly in the ET:QW test. Regardless of the deltas, the Vision 3D 252B is the fastest of the bunch.

Although not listed in the graphs, we'd also like to mention that we did some in-game testing at full 1080P resolution as well. In L4D2 the system put up 44.16 FPS at 1080P and in ET:QW it put up 61 FPS.