ASRock CoreHT Server Edition Review
by Vivek Gowri on February 16, 2012 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Intel
- ASRock
- Media Streamer
- HTPC
Take a Look Inside
As with the CoreHT 252B, the Server is built around notebook internals. Let’s break it down.
CPU/GPU: Intel Core i5-2410M/HD 3000
The i5-2410M is a 32nm mobile Sandy Bridge part, clocked at 2.3GHz with a maximum turbo frequency of 2.9GHz. It’s a dual-core, 4-thread part that has a 35W TDP and a maximum clock of 1.2GHz for the on-die HD 3000 graphics core.
Chipset: Intel HM67
Interestingly, the motherboard has HM65 printed on it and the chipset even has a sticker on it identifying itself as an HM65 part. This would make any kind of RAID problematic, because the HM65 chipset doesn’t have an onboard RAID controller. This appears, however, to be a simple problem of mislabeling, because the chip is pretty clearly based on the Cougar Point HM67 platform (as identified in CPU-Z), with the two hard drives set up in RAID 0. Functionally, the only difference between HM65 and HM67 is the inclusion of the onboard RAID controller. Otherwise, the board is basically the same as the the one found in the CoreHT-252B.
Storage: 2 x 500GB 7200RPM, RAID 0
The star of the show here, the hard drive array, is made up of two 2.5” 500GB 7200RPM SATA hard drives arranged in a RAID 0 configuration to form a single 1TB volume. The two drives aren’t matched, with one being a Hitachi HTS7250 and the other being a Western Digital WD5000, but the specs are very similar. We will cover performance shortly, but it’s quite good.
Beyond the main features, there are two SoDIMMs of 2GB DDR3 1333 for a total of 4GB system memory, along with an Atheros AR9287 wireless card and the same Phillips Lite-On DS-4E1S Blu-ray combo drive as the 252B.
A special mention for the media center remote—it’s the same one as the CoreHT 252B, but I didn’t dislike it as much as Ganesh did. It feels light in hand, but not of poor build quality, and it’s relatively compact given the number of buttons on it. This leads to rather small buttons, but it’s something you can adjust to unless you have huge hands. Personally, I prefer remotes closer in form and function to the Boxee remote and such, but I found the CoreHT remote to be decent.
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beginner99 - Thursday, February 16, 2012 - link
...and hdd combo?For HTPC purpose, the ssd alone would be enough because anyone considering to pay as much fro a HTPC probably already has a NAS or a lot of storage space in his desktop.
The hdd would just be not to scare away people that would like to use it as a tiny desktop or just because of the low numbers on the tech sheet .
VMguy - Thursday, February 16, 2012 - link
An HTPC review without any indication of db output? For shame!At least let us know if the second disk accounts for any additional noise relative to the 252B.
Thanks
VivekGowri - Thursday, February 16, 2012 - link
Sorry, I wasn't equipped to test noise level, but I wouldn't expect noise levels to change significantly. It's seriously exactly the same unit, just with two HDDs; if you were hitting the storage pretty hard maybe you'd see a marginal increase in noise output compared to the 252B, but I have difficulty believing it'd be anything more than negligible/error margin.VMguy - Thursday, February 16, 2012 - link
Sorry, I just checked back on the 252B review and found that there were no noise output measurements there either... Doh!For me, hearing the whir of a fan (or BD) during quieter segments of a movie is pretty annoying. Any plans to add this to the review template?
Thanks
VivekGowri - Thursday, February 16, 2012 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4713/asrock-coreht-2...cjs150 - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
Now I understandWay too loud.
As VMGuy said "For me, hearing the whir of a fan (or BD) during quieter segments of a movie is pretty annoying. "
Totally agree - in fact my stand alone BD player annoys me, which is my I am looking to rip everything onto the NAS (in basement so who cares about noise) and then stream, so my HTPC should have no BD noise, preferably no fan. Nothing comes close as yet but have high hopes of something based on Raspberry Pi or CuBox or even E-450 fusion
Death666Angel - Thursday, February 16, 2012 - link
I like tiny HTPCs. I built myself a Llano system in a small enclosure (http://preview.tinyurl.com/88djyte).The thing I find a bit puzzling about this config is the HDDs. RAID0 doesn't make a lot of sense. :-)
darckhart - Thursday, February 16, 2012 - link
that's a rather beautiful enclosure. do you have model number/details?in fact, i'm looking into building a small htpc for my parents. would you mind to pm me details of yours?
NCM - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
Beautiful? Seriously?pat38 - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
Any one see this REAL HTPChttp://www.facebook.com/pages/Lanmatehk/1803044619...
Lanmate hk mini pc