Manufacturer: Asrock Price: $ 1000 US Author: Steve Date: 12/05/2011

[ Introduction ]

Today we are checking out the latest Mini PC from Asrock known as the Vision 3D 252B. This second generation Vision 3D series adopts the Intel Sandy Bridge architecture while it also provides a few other noteworthy enhancements. There are a huge range of features on offer, making this one of the most impressive HTPCs to date... The Asrock Mini PC line has featured some exciting products over the past few years and none have been more exciting than the Vision 3D. Armed with a power efficient Intel Core i3 or Core i5 mobile processor, along with the Nvidia GeForce GT 425M graphics card, the Vision 3D made for the ultimate small form factor HTPC. Thanks to the inclusion of a low-end graphics card the Vision 3D didn’t have to rely on the embedded Intel HD graphics, which provides very poor performance. Although the gaming performance of the GeForce GT 425M didn’t blow us away, it was more often than not considerably faster than the Intel HD Graphics 3000 graphics engine utilized by the newer Intel Core i5-2520M processor. This was evident when comparing the Asrock CoreHT 252B to the Vision 3D 137B. The CoreHT series, which was released after the Vision 3D series, was the first to make use of the highly efficient Sandy Bridge architecture by adopting the Core i3-2330M and Core i5-2520M processors. However, as it failed to include an integrated graphics solution, users were forced to rely on the Intel HD Graphics 3000. What Asrock needed was a Sandy Bridge revision of the Vision 3D, and that is exactly what they have created. The Vision 3D (Sandy Bridge) is essentially the original product but on steroids. Not only has the processor been upgraded but so too has the memory, hard drive and graphics card. So far there is just one model to choose from and it includes the Intel Core i5 2520M processor, 8GB of DDR3-1333 memory, 750GB hard drive and a GeForce GT 540M graphics card. These upgrades should make the Vision 3D (Sandy Bridge) the most powerful and well-rounded Asrock Mini PC released to date. Of course all this power must come at a price and that price is currently $1000 US, making the Vision 3D 252B one of the most expensive models as well. Keeping that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the features on offer...

Table of Contents >>> Introduction <<< Unveiling the Asrock Vision 3D 252B Taking Apart the Vision 3D 252B Test System Specs Memory Bandwidth Performance Synthetic Performance Application Performance Encoding Performance Gaming Performance Power Consumption Conclusion Next Page ->

sharks

Posted on: 12/15/2011 12:16 AM good looking PC with high quality specs. its a little pricey but I guess you are buying a mid range laptop without the screen

Sean Russell

Posted on: 12/15/2011 03:33 AM Did you test it with any other games? Batman, maybe?

ProX	Posted on: 12/15/2011 08:45 AM Nice work as always, I would love to upgrade my HTPC with this @ Sean Russell - Why Batman? The gaming performance seemed pretty conclusive to me.

poster

Posted on: 12/15/2011 10:00 AM cool product but I really want Asrock to make an E350 version!

saymyname

Posted on: 12/15/2011 10:49 AM I have the first Vision 3D and I love it. I am pretty envious though after seeing this review.

mongoosenco

Posted on: 12/15/2011 12:52 PM From the looks of it at newegg and asrock Windows 7 is not included so the price is more like 1100 if you are using Windows 7.

Steve Posts: 75 Joined: 2010-02-08

Posted on: 12/15/2011 10:01 PM Thanks for the feedback guys. Posted by mongoosenco on 12/15/2011 01:52 PM From the looks of it at newegg and asrock Windows 7 is not included so the price is more like 1100 if you are using Windows 7. Asrock has told me that it does come with Windows 7 installed, just as our sample did. Update: There seemed to be a lot of confusion here. Asrock are now saying no it does not come with Windows 7 installed. So to confirm you are correct there is no OS included.

Alex

Posted on: 12/20/2011 06:01 AM Great review! I do have a request though - do you mind expanding on the noise aspect a bit further considering this is an HTPC and all... I'd like to put this in a very quiet environment and would really hate to hear the fan. Silent would be absolutely perfect - especially considering the price, but I understand that perhaps active CPU cooling is needed. In that case, I'd like to get an idea of the noise levels being generated by the unit if possible. For comparison, I currently own an ASUS O!Play Live! and unlike the previous versions, this one is actively cooled as well and already seems just a tad noisy for my liking. Thank you very much for any help with this!

saymyname

Posted on: 12/21/2011 01:34 AM I have the original 3D Vision and I would say for the most part its silent. Hope that helps.

Alex	Posted on: 12/22/2011 05:22 AM @saymyname - thank you. I pulled the trigger on the 252B and (hopefully) soon I will provide some feedback as well.

Jose	Posted on: 01/01/2012 11:28 PM Thank u for such an excellent and thorough review. I would also appreciate if you could share your thoughts about the noise levels with this unit. Thank you!

smeden

Posted on: 01/22/2012 03:09 PM Can this blueray play in 3D?

Alex

Posted on: 02/12/2012 09:51 PM @Jose Its not bad - its not completely silent, but its fairly quiet. If you use it in a small quiet room, it will be audible when you're not watching something, but you don't really notice it when you're watching a movie. @smeden According to the specs, it can, but I have not tried it as I don't have a 3D TV. Overall, I've been fairly pleased with it. One thing that was disappointing to me was that it did not come with Win7 pre-installed - for this price, I would think they could put Win7 on it. I put Win7 on it with XBMC, got a Dinovo Mini keyboard and this setup has worked fairly well for me since.