Priced at $800 on Newegg, ASRock’s CoreHT 252B is the most expensive contender in our round-up. That doesn’t suggest a lack of value, though. This unit boasts the most powerful CPU, the fastest hard disk, and the ability to play Blu-ray 3D movies over HDMI. The only thing you don’t get for $800 is an operating system.
The ASRock Core HT comes in a small box styled in a white and grey colour scheme. There is a photo of the system and a small graphic. The side of the box mentions some features, while the rear is nearly identical.
Inside the box, everything is packaged very well in dense foam. The bundle includes a remote controller (batteries included), owner’s manual, power brick and cable, and a pad to place under the system to prevent sliding on smooth surfaces. Also included was a driver disk, and extra 3Pin-to-Molex and SATA cables, as well as a DVI-to-HDMI output converter.
A closer look at the remote controller reveals it is compatible with Windows Media Player, and features a wide assortment of functions and buttons, just about everything someone could want or need. The ASRock Core HT box itself is extremely small, something akin a Mac Mini, but shorter. Frankly, it’s the smallest full-featured HTPC box we’ve ever seen.
The front of the Core HT is quite impressive in both aesthetics and functionality. It’s quite minimalist in design, only the basics are included, and a piano black finish that will easily show fingerprints.
Asrock got its act together with the Vision 3D, outfitting the system with Intel’s Core Mobile processors (the flagship model carried a Core i5-560M). The company also kept the HM55 chipset but made one noteworthy change with the Vision 3D: the inclusion of an Nvidia GeForce GT425M discrete graphics card.
Granted, if you’re serious about gaming, the GeForce GT425M doesn’t have much to offer you. But it’s good enough for casual gamers, as it provides the bare minimum for playable performance. The Vision 3D was a huge step forward in becoming the perfect HTPC in our opinion, as it allowed users to do a bit of everything.
As far as connectors goes, we were really impressed at the amount of connectivity you get from such a small little system that measures in at 195mm (W) x 70mm (H) x 186mm (L) with a volume capacity of just 2.5 litres. On the front of the system you get two speedy USB 3.0 ports and the standard microphone and headphone audio jacks.
Moving around to the back of the system is where the fun really begins. You get 7.1 audio output, gigabit LAN, a HDMI 1.4a port (which is capable of displaying Stereoscopic 3D), one D-Sub connector, four USB 2.0 ports, two more tasty USB 3.0 ports, an S/PDIF optical connector for digital audio output and an eSATA3 connector for fast transfers to a compatible external hard drive. Additionally, in this region you will also find the DC-in jack as well as the extraction point for the system cooling fan.
The CoreHT appeals to almost every one of our senses because it’s a good-looking, do-everything box, so having one in our lounge would be awesome. But it’s just not essential enough to justify the price. So five stars from the heart, but our head can think of many alternative set-ups for the same amount of money.
