ASRock VisionX HTPC 321B Ivy Bridge mini-PC Review

Name: ASRock VisionX HTPC 321B Ivy Bridge mini-PC
Brand: ASRock

cadaveca

on Apr 10th, 2013,

in Media Players.

Manufacturer: ASRock

Value & Conclusion »

BIOS

The ASRock VisionX 321B HTPC comes with a BIOS that greatly resembles the BIOS of many of the boards I've reviewed before, including the ability to limit internet access from right inside the BIOS, which is great for parents or others that need such features desperately.

There aren't very many voltage control options, other than for the RAM. The timing selection offered for the RAM is pretty good considering this is a laptop in a desktop case.

Both the fan for the HDDs and the CPU can be controlled through the BIOS, which allows for the system to run quietly; the fans can obviously also be set to run at full speed if cooling needs to increase a little.

Everything offered here is, all in all, pretty impressive, easily matching everything you expect from any other desktop system and then some. Using an unlocked mobile IvyBridge chip may unlock other clocking features, and you can definitely upgrade the provided CPU to something a bit more powerful, should that be your need. Getting it up and running should, when you do, be pretty simple, thanks to the control ASRock offers through the BIOS.

But do you really need any upgrades? Since there is no provided OS, you'll have a bit of work ahead of you after initially plugging the system in. With that in mind, time between opening the box and first powering it up would best be spend making those upgrades. Be that as it may, I don't see much of a point in adding anything other than an SSD for faster OS boot times. Let's take a look at stock performance. I will, as usual, let the numbers do the talking. If you looked at the specifications list, it should be pretty clear that this unit is going to outperform most of the previously tested mini-PCs.

Performance

PC Mark 07

Futuremark PCMark 07 Full Bench
	ASRock VisionX 321B HTPC	ZOTAC ZBOX nano XS AD11 PLUS	ARCTIC MC001-BD	Foxconn NT-A3500	Zotac ION F	Sapphire Edge VS8 Mini PC	Desktop PC Intel i7-930
PCMark 07 Score	2358	1429	984	1070	905	1687	4198
Lightweight score	1955	1553	984	986	936	1411	3906
Productivity score	1543	1185	549	699	576	1072	3626
Entertainment score	2839	1184	1009	1029	827	1824	4238
Creativity score	3410	1544	1328	1192	1247	1903	4352
Computation score	4569	727	751	1037	638	1790	4419
System storage score	1409	2798	1676	1357	1725	1421	4487
Video playback	23.98 fps	22.99 fps	22.86 fps	19.91 fps	22.8 fps	22.99 fps	22.93 fps
Video transcoding - downscaling	2546.71 kB/s	638.41 kB/s	717.22 kB/s	1086.94 kB/s	540.56 kB/s	2086.41 kB/s	5735.49 kB/s
System storage - gaming	3.19 MB/s	10.47 MB/s	4.13 MB/s	3.24 MB/s	4.21 MB/s	3.32 MB/s	15.32 MB/s
Graphics - DirectX 9	58.86 fps	8.83 fps	8.38 fps	7.85 fps	4.79 fps	20.41 fps	65.73 fps
Image manipulation	10.04 Mpx/s	2.77 Mpx/s	2.52 Mpx/s	2.66 Mpx/s	2.13 Mpx/s	5.58 Mpx/s	9.16 Mpx/s
System storage - importing pictures	5.15 MB/s	10.38 MB/s	5.68 MB/s	4.42 MB/s	6.3 MB/s	5.47 MB/s	19.71 MB/s
Web browsing	12.94 pages	2.97 pages/s	2.58 pages/s	3.38 pages/s	2.14 pages/s	6.41 pages/s	15.35 pages/s
Data decrypting	93.42 MB/s	26.02 MB/s	9.72 MB/s	22.26 MB/s	11.25 MB/s	59.28 MB/s	63.97 MB/s
System storage - Windows Defender	1.13 MB/s	4.17 MB/s	1.42 MB/s	1.19 MB/s	1.59 MB/s	1.14 MB/s	5.4 MB/s
Web browsing with 3 tabs	12.91 pages/s	3.88 pages/s	2.83 pages/s	3.34 pages/s	2.27 pages/s	6.78 pages/s	10.94 pages/s
System storage - adding music	1.14 MB/s	1.32 MB/s	1.21 MB/s	1.15 MB/s	1.22 MB/s	1.15 MB/s	1.4 MB/s
Text editing	10.54 operations/s	3.20 operations/s	1.65 operations/s	2.92 operations/s	1.95 operations/s	5.10 operations/s	10.7 operations/s
System storage - starting applications	1.77 MB/s	7.94 MB/s	2.48 MB/s	1.78 MB/s	2.36 MB/s	1.98 MB/s	30.67 MB/s
Web browsing 1	9.37 pages/s	2.32 pages/s	2.04 pages/s	2.19 pages/s	1.67 pages/s	1.86 pages/s	10.23 pages/s
Web browsing 2	9.61 pages/s	2.45 pages/s	2.11 pages/s	2.26 pages/s	1.66 pages/s	5.09 pages/s	10.25 pages/s
Graphics - DirectX 10 - texture fill	24.31 fps	4.21 fps	3.62 fps	3.5 fps	1.66 fps	8.86 fps	37.23 fps
Graphics - DirectX 10 - color fill	3.16 fps	0.49 fps	0.64 fps	0.41 fps	0.32 fps	1.077 fps	6.84 fps
Graphics - DirectX 10 - POM	29.65 fps	2.89 fps	1.96 fps	2.41 fps	1.58 fps	9.16 fps	36.58 fps
Graphics - DirectX 10 - GPU cloth	29.66 fps	11.26 fps	5.26 fps	4.02 fps	4.65 fps	22.16 fps	35.57 fps
Graphics - DirectX 10 - GPU particles	32.13 fps	4.73 fps	5.92 fps	4.09 fps	2.2 fps	10.65 fps	56.77 fps
Graphics - DirectX 10 - Perlin noise	52.81 fps	6.01 fps	1.55 fps	5.16 fps	2.51 fps	22.66 fps	88.05 fps
Video transcoding - high quality	2791.99 kB/s	163.75 kB/s	176.78 kB/s	192.71 kB/s	145.46 kB/s	437.25 kB/s	1247.87 kB/s
System storage - video editing	13.38 MB/s	17.29 MB/s	17.15 MB/s	12.09 MB/s	16.83 MB/s	15.53 MB/s	21.58 MB/s
System storage - Windows Media Center	7.44 MB/s	7.91 MB/s	7.72 MB/s	6.64 MB/s	7.28 MB/s	7.12 MB/s	7.98 MB/s