HTPC
Zotac is one of the major players in the SFF PC space, having marketed ultra-compact form-factor machines even before the NUCs took off. The growth in that segment has broadened the available market for their mini-PCs, allowing them to experiment with a wide variety of models for different use-cases. The passively-cooled SFF systems from Zotac are marketed under the 'C-series' tag. These 'nano' units used to adopt a NUC form-factor (100mm x 100mm) with similar chassis dimensions, which provided performance and thermal efficiency commensurate with their size. Starting with the Kaby Lake-Refresh series, the company started adopting a larger form factor and added some platform features. We had reviewed the Zotac ZBOX CI660 nano in that generation in early 2019. Today, we are taking a look...
Zotac GeForce GT 640 DDR3 Review: Glacial Gaming & Heavenly HTPC
Two weeks ago NVIDIA formally launched the retail GeForce GT 640, catching up to their OEM and laptop offerings with their first GK107 based video card for the retail...
60 by Ryan Smith & Ganesh T S on 6/20/2012
AMD Llano HTPC Builders Guide
Home Theater PCs (HTPCs) are becoming more and more popular due to a number of reasons. The desire of consumers to watch and enjoy their media, be it Blu-rays/DVDs...
76 by Ganesh T S on 6/5/2012
ASRock Revamps HTPC Lineup with VisionX, Vision HT and MINI Series
ASRock's mini-ITX form factor HTPCs have been held in high esteem by us, but their second generation refresh left a lot to be desired in terms of being revolutionary...
11 by Ganesh T S on 6/2/2012
Replacing my HTPC with a mini ITX System
Free time is hard to come by these days. Since the beginning of the year I've hit Vegas, Barcelona, Santa Clara, New York, Santa Clara (again), Austin, Seattle, Chicago...
56 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/24/2012
Streacom Updates Passive HTPC Chassis Lineup with FC9 and FC10
The advent of CPUs with low TDPs (but having enough power to handle HTPC duties) has resulted in passive HTPCs becoming more and more popular. Streacom (started in 2010...
15 by Ganesh T S on 5/23/2012
ASRock's High-End Vision 3D 252B HTPC Review
In late 2010, we reviewed the ASRock Vision 3D, and declared it to be the best pre-built SFF (small form factor) HTPC we had reviewed. ASRock duly updated the...
60 by Ganesh T S on 5/7/2012_carousel.jpg)
SilverStone Grandia GD07 Review: Centering and Serving Your Media
The last time we reviewed one of SilverStone's Grandia enclosures, it was the GD04, and it was a review that launched the first major revamp of how we test...
37 by Dustin Sklavos on 4/29/2012
Intel's Ivy Bridge: An HTPC Perspective
Towards the end of June 2011, we saw AMD trying to create a HTPC friendly solution in the Llano series. By pairing a GPU with the CPU in the...
70 by Ganesh T S on 4/23/2012
Zotac ZBOX Nano XS AD11 Plus: Redefining the Small Form Factor PC
Small Form Factor (SFF) PCs are becoming quite popular as processors become more and more power efficient. Over the last few years, we have had a slew of budget...
44 by Ganesh T S on 4/11/2012
Pulse-Eight Motorola NYXboard Hybrid Remote Review
Pulse-Eight is one of the companies tracing its roots to XBMC, and it is no wonder they have a host of interesting products in the HTPC space. We have...
23 by Ganesh T S on 4/5/2012
ASRock CoreHT Server Edition Review
Late last year, we took a look at the ASRock CoreHT 252B, a Sandy Bridge-based midrange HTPC. We liked the CoreHT quite a bit, noting that the small form...
44 by Vivek Gowri on 2/16/2012
AMD Radeon HD 7750 & Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition Review: Evading The Price/Performance Curve
With the launch of Tahiti behind them, AMD is now firing on all cylinders to get the rest of their Southern Islands lineup out the door. Typically we’d see...
155 by Ryan Smith & Ganesh T S on 2/15/2012
CyberLink PowerDVD 12: Complementing Your Mobile Lifestyle
Software Blu-ray / DVD players are bundled with almost all OEM PCs and a necessity for consumers who want to enjoy their commercial optical media in the most legal...
42 by Ganesh T S on 1/31/2012
Syabas Launches Popcorn Hour C-300
Syabas launched the second generation version of their BDA licensed unit, the Popcorn Hour C-300 today. The previous version was based on Sigma's SMP 8643, and the C-300 is based...
6 by Ganesh T S on 12/6/2011
Zotac Introduces Passively Cooled GTS 450 Zone Edition
Passively cooled high performance GPUs are quite popular with the HTPC community. NVIDIA GPUs are preferred by many HTPC users because of good software support (LAV CUVID, for example...
25 by Ganesh T S on 11/23/2011
ASRock CoreHT 252B Review
Approximately a year back, we reviewed the ASRock Core 100 HTPC which was a pioneer of sorts in the small form factor (SFF) HTPC space. Till that point, the...
56 by Ganesh T S on 9/2/2011
Roku 2 Brings Casual Gaming to TVs
Roku, founded in 2002, is one of the pioneers in the media streamer market. OTT (over-the-top) content from premium service providers like Netflix and Hulu has become more popular...
16 by Ganesh T S on 7/19/2011
AMD A8-3850 : An HTPC Perspective
Today is all about Lynx, the desktop version of the Llano platform from AMD. Anand is reviewing the A8-3850 from a generic PC perspective, and Ian is covering its...
107 by Ganesh T S on 6/30/2011
Discrete HTPC GPU Shootout
The popularity of Intel's HD Graphics amongst HTPC enthusiasts and the success of the AMD APUs seem to indicate that the days of the discrete HTPC GPU are numbered...
70 by Ganesh T S on 6/12/2011
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