Asrock Vision 3D Preparing to Cross Sandy Bridge
Asrock has demonstrated a marked interest in the HTPC market over the last few years and has assembled a solid lineup of SFF barebones kits specifically aimed at HTPC enthusiasts. We even reviewed one of the early models, the ASRock ION-330 Nettop. The current cream of the crop Asrock SFFs are the Vision 3D line that combine an Intel Arrandale mobile processor with an Nvidia GeForce GT425M Graphics.
Evidently Asrock hasn’t kept quite as tight a lid on their upcoming products as they would like as information regarding the second generation of Vision 3D SFFs has leaked out.
A tipster was doing a little Google-fu when he came across a listing for the unannounced Vision 3D 2nd Gen Series. The specs are certainly a worthy upgrade to last year’s Computex standout, including a switchable 1GB GeForce GT540M card, 1333MHz RAM and an HMDI 1.4a port.
While Asrock has not made anything official yet, the Vision 3D line getting bumped up to Sandy Bridge would hardly come as a surprise as the one step down Core HT line recently went through the same transition. Moving from an Arrandale mobile porcessor to a Sandy Bridge mobile processor is not going to make a huge difference in performance, but it sounds like the whole package is getting a nice refresh.