A few weeks ago Intel released a BIOS update for their H67 Media Series motherboards that provided support for next generation 22nm CPUs, better known as Ivy Bridge. Shortly their after the file was pulled because of issues with bricked boards. Well today an updated BIOS dropped offering this, and a few other features. As I was working my way […]
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Kyle and I got the chance to check out Intel’s booth early this morning and while Ivy Bridge didn’t make the trip, we did get to see some cool all-in-one (AIO) PCs both from OEMs and [more interestingly] found out that Intel will be enabling DIY builders to assemble their own AIO systems. There will be a wide variety of […]
Read moreUntil recently, proper support for hardware accelerated decoding on Intel GPUs has been missing from the Free Open Source Software (FOSS) community. Eric Gur added the feature to ffdshow a few months ago, but for those who have transitioned to nevcairiel’s LAV Filters because of the greater stability offered by his codecs that didn’t offer a real solution to the […]
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I love reading Ganesh’s work because he’s one of the few reviewers (not on Missing Remote of course) that really gets HTPC. They are always incredibly detailed and this look at ASRock’s CoreHT 252B is no exception. You’ll have to read it through to get his thoughts, but I am pleased to see that this generation of CoreHT’s is much […]
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For those who like their Home Theater PC’s completely silent, Aleutia has recently released a PC that might just be for you. Aleutia started out making low cost PCs for Internet cafes in Africa but then has branched out to create computers for a wide variety of situations with a focus on low power consumption and noise. The H3-R comes […]
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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 […]
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In the Sandy Bridge generation, Intel has brought to market numerous CPUs that cover a wide range of thermal and performance envelopes. The T-variant parts having TDP values as little as 35W are an intriguing choice for small form factor (SFF) enclosures because their cooling and peak power consumption requirements are much less. What happens when we compare the T-variant […]
Read moreLast week we posted an update on the need to disable User Account Control (UAC) on Intel’s second generation HD Graphics IPG (Sandy Bridge) systems, but we still weren’t sure how to reliably reproduce the results. Well a new DH67BL showed up today along with instructions on how to enable the feature on existing hardware which explains why we couldn’t […]
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At the end of May, Intel introduced new Sandy Bridge architecture Pentium-branded chips that offer great performance for HTPCs on a budget. Things are about to get even cheaper with three new 35W T-branded parts (Pentium G530T, Pentium G630T and Core i3-2120T) . The rest of the non-T parts coming are Pentium G630, Pentium G860, Core i3-2125 (with HD3000 graphics), […]
Read moreIn the last podcast I mentioned that I’d heard some talk that Intel was working on a fix for the UAC work around requirement for better refresh rate precision with Sandy Bridge GPUs, but hadn’t figured out how to reproduce it yet… Well I found a semi-public driver that might just be the key. Taking a look at the screenshots […]
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