ASRock Core HT HTPC (Sandybridge) Review

The top of the ASRock Core HT can be unscrewed, giving access to the internals. The Bluray drive, situated at the top of the case, blocks access to everything else, but it can also be easily removed.

The optical drive and hard drive are mounted into the same metal enclosure, ensuring a clean and tidy system build.

These are both connected directly to headers on the motherboard via proprietary connectors.

ASRock are using two quality drives, the Liteon BD Combo Drive, Model DS-4E1S and a 500GB 2.5 inch Western Digital Scorpio hard drive. No Solid State drive in this system, but it would raise the price considerably.

When the drive chamber is removed, full access is given to the motherboard. There is a flat style horizontal oriented cooler mounted on the Core i5 processor and ASRock are using 4GB (2+2GB) of SO-DIMM 1333mhz DDR3 memory – they claim the board will accept up to 16GB in total. The motherboard also supports 1066mhz and 1600mhz memory, but we will look at this in the bios later as sometimes listed specifications can vary.

There is room for expansion with another SATA port available on the board. This particular board also has wireless capabilities, via the 802.11 b/g/n (2T2R) module. This supports up to 300Mbps within a capable network. The board is supported by the Intel HD Graphics 3000.

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