ARCTIC MC101-A10 HTPC

[Stripes]

Just seen this review for ARCTIC's new HTPC with an AMD Trinity APU.

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/arctic_mc101_a10_home_entertainment_centre,1.html

It's got a fair bit more grunt than the usual pre-built HTPC as it's running an A10-4600 APU, looks great and supposedly idles at <10W according to the marketing:

What do you think? At $700 it seems a little pricey, but do you think it can do the job for people who want to do a little more than the usual i3 builds are capable of doing?

 

[Quddy]

That actually looks quite impressive! Nice selection of ports available including USB 3 on the rear and side. Shame there is only HDMI though which probably means max 1080p.

The price isn't too bad especially for the barebones unit. Wonder if it can take a 3.5" HDD?

May get one of these and utilise the mSATA slot. Anyone know the speed of mSATA, i.e. can it make full use of an SATA 3 SSD?

 

[Quddy]

mSATA is SATA 2 only but should be fast enough.

Only problem with this is that the case temperature can reach 60C+! And the fan noise can get loud if you change the bios settings to compensate. I'm not one to care about temps as long they are within the specified limits but over 60C on a metal case can be dangerous.

Personally, I really want to build a passive cooling system around the Streacom FC8 EVO chasis with the latest AMD Trinity A10-5700 CPU. Taking AMD forever to release the thing though!