Powered by new AMD Trinity APUs, the MC101 is a style heavy and feature-rich HTPC with bags of potential…
Manufacturer & Sponsor: ARCTIC
Estimated Street Price: $699 / €539 Excl. VAT
You’d be forgiven for only recognising the ARCTIC Cooling brand within the ARCTIC stable – for some time they have been a significant presence in the aftermarket cooling arena for CPUs and VGA cards. However that is not their only area of interest; ARCTIC also manufacture and sell diverse products – from hobbyist toys to PC peripherals. In February of this year Vortez were lucky enough to review the MC001-BD Home Theatre PC with Blu-Ray, which earned a Silver Award due to its breadth of features and totally silent operation, so we’re not unfamiliar with ARCTIC’s HTPC credentials.
For review today is the MC101-A10 Home Entertainment Centre, a compact HTPC based around the new AMD Trinity APU platform. As you will see, the raw specs of the MC101-A10 are significantly improved from the MC001-BD making it a more well rounded system for the front room or the bedroom. Whilst not silent, ARCTIC have brought their cooling expertise to bear with the aim of very low noise operation to create a more pleasant experience when watching High Definition Video, Digital Terrestrial TV and Internet browsing. ARCTIC note about the MC101-A10:
The MC101 (A10) is an artistic combination of elegantly-brushed silver aluminium design with the latest APU technology. It is featured with the latest high-speed AMD APU processor Trinity A10-4600M, extreme 3D HD graphics that is ideal for gamers, up to 8 GB RAM, massive HDD storage, pre-installed Windows® 7 Home Premium (Windows 8 ready), TV tuner and numerous ports for extensive connectivity.
AMD’s A10-4600M is the latest generation of AMD APUs, codenamed ‘Trinity’. Rather than the up-to x86 STARS cores (based on AMD Athlon II ‘Llano’ CPU cores) seen on the 3000-series APU’s, the A10-4600M features two Piledriver modules. Piledriver itself is an evolution of the controversial ‘multi-thread optimised’ Bulldozer architecture – controversial mainly due to missing performance expectations. Each Piledriver module features two cores that share a proportion of the uncore, hence why these APUs are generally labelled ‘quad-core’ in marketing literature. The 4600M is clocked at 2.3GHz, though turbo modes allowing it to reach 3.2GHz under specific load conditions.
The graphic portion of the A10-4600M package is a HD 7660G, featuring 384 Radeon GPU Cores on die clocked at 438MHz-685MHz. It should be stressed that these graphics cores are not based on the Graphics Core Next architecture seen in AMD’s 7000-series of discrete graphics cards; the 7660G utilises the VLIW4 architecture of the later 6000-series AMD GPU’s. This is still a major upgrade from the previous generation of APUs, and probably the most powerful graphics seen on-die to date.
Technical Specifications
Packaging And Bundle
ARCTIC are certainly not hiding away the MC101-A10 in their packaging – the HTPC is front and centre, as it should be. Also prominent is the availability of a Remote Control App for iOS and Android devices; nice to see that they’re not playing favourites with their Smartphones.
Listed on the front are the features of the product: Windows 7 Home Premium, AMD Vision and Radeon Graphics technology, TV Tuner and USB 3.0 to name a few. A curious addition is the advertising of 3D Capability; sadly not something we have the tools to test but likely accomplished through the use of 3D Blu-Ray video files.
The rear of the sleeve details the technical specifications of the MC101. Thankfully it appears to be specific to the SKU purchased – we have the specs for the MC101-A10 – and surprisingly detailed. It should be noted that although it lists a DVB-T (HD) tuner, you will not be able to pick up Freeview HD in the UK (which makes use of DVB-T2); other regions may be able to utilise this tuner for terrestrial HD content without difficulty.
The sleeve top replicates the Main Feature of the MC101 which were listed on the rear in 12 different languages, whereas the bottom describes pictorially the cooling mechanism, dimunitive height and wide connectivity options.
ARCTIC’s bundled accessories for the MC101-A10 may seem sparse, but are in fact the minimum you need to get underway. As well as the Power Brick, region-specific plug and quick-start guide, ARCTIC have included a ‘high speed HDMI cable’, compact digital TV aerial and coax aerial cable adapter. Though a IR sensor is included on the MC101 itself, ARCTIC have chosen to not include a remote control. Perhaps due to the prevalence of Smartphones they instead provide a Apple iOS and Google Play App to turn your ‘phone into a remote control without incurring the expense of additional hardware. Those without a smartphone can rest easy – the MC101 is also compatible with a wide range of Windows MCE remote controls.
Closer Look (External)
So, our first look at the ARCTIC MC101-A10 in the flesh, and it looks pretty good. That brushed aluminium finish is excellent and the ARCTIC inset is a nice styling flurish. The clean lines of the unit is only marred very slightly by the IR Sensor in the bottom-right of the unit near the floor, but that’s very unobtrusive. During power-on the combo switch/light bar glows white, which for this reviewer is preferable over both red and blue as the light tends not to diffract when viewed through corrective lenses, making it significantly less distracting.
Users of aluminium chassis will be well aware that sweat transfer can mar the surface; be careful to install the MC101 with clean and dry hands!
The rear of the unit is the location of the majority of the MC101’s external connectivity, and ARCTIC have shown an unusual attention to detail by also finishing this panel in brushed aluminium. Left-most is a mini-RF in for the integrated DVB-T/ATSC TV Tuner, designed for the bundled RF aerial and adapter, followed by three audio ports: line-out, microphone-in and Optical SPDIF.
Next up is a bank of four USB 2.0 ports, fairly tightly packed but not generally an issue for keyboards, mice etc. Centrally located on the rear panel is the DC 12V power socket, for use with the bundled external PSU. The right of the MC101 has a further two USB ports, this time USB 3.0, HDMI and Gigabit LAN port. Note that the close proximity of the HDMI port to the USB ports may cause clearance issues with some USB devices such as thumb drives.
As well as cooling vents, the left side of the board includes a number of external connectivity options. One USB 2.0/eSATAp combo port will be useful for hooking up external eSATA drives and thumb drives, whilst the USB 3.0 port would allow you to take advantage of the additional bandwidth offered by a USB 3.0 drive. To the left of these two ports is a 4-in-1 media card reader, compatible with SD, MMC, MS and XD cards commonly seen in digital camera’s the world over. The final port is something of a novelty – a TRRS headset audio port which combines headphone stereo audio and mic into one plug. The location, easily accessible from the front rather than requiring fiddling around the rear, is ideal.
The right panel is composed entirely of venting for cooling. Both sides should probably be kept clear during operation, ensuring a healthy supply of air to the APU cooler.
The floor is almost entirely composed of a 1mm thick rubberised foam, serving to deaden transmitted vibration and hence reduce overall noise. The textured surface also serves to hold the unit in place – though not particularly lightweight itself, tension on thick HDMI cables may otherwise have dragged the unit over slippery glass or wooden TV stands. Removing all five screws from the floor plate, and two from the rear, allows access to the MC101’s internal components.
Closer Look (Internal)
After whipping out half a dozen screws you have limited access to the MC101’s internal components – essentially the hard drive rails and SATA III 6GBPS ports. Note that barebones versions of the MC101 will not have a HDD pre-installed, but HDD rails and screws are bundled.
From here you can carefully lever out the HDD’s, install a second one into makeshift caddy and hook it up in-situ. Changing the HDDs is perhaps the only straightforward hardware upgrade the end-user can make, for reasons which will become clear.
Removing a further eight screws (including three spring-loaded screws around the APU) gains you access to the rest of the internal components. Note that if you do so Thermal Compound and TIM-Clean should be close to hand. Be sure also to disconnect the internal TV Tuner cable before lifting out the mainboard to prevent damage to components.
Image courtesy ARCTIC
The labelled components are as follows:
C) TV Tuner and WiFi Module (Green PCB). The TV Tuner board is connected via an internal USB 2.0 port, and hooked up the the aerial socket via a narrow coaxial cable.
D) mPCIe/mSATA Port. mSATA devices, including an mSATA SSD, can be connected here.
E) AMD Fusion Controller Hub (FCH), in this case the Hudson M3; essentially the heart of the A70M platform. This chip and associated power circuitry is cooled via thick thermal pads which transmits heat to the cooler, be sure not to lose them.
F) The AMD A10-4600M APU.
G) 2x DDR3 SODIMM RAM slots. Barebones systems are populated with either 2x4GB or 2x2GB modules, and so buying one will not necessitate this level of internal access to get up and running.
H) 2x SATA III 6Gbps.
I) MC101 cooling assembly. This is an ARCTIC Cooling design which combines a passive heatsink with active cooling fan, allowing near silent operation. As well as being exhausted as hot air, the design utilises the aluminium chassis to radiate some excess heat; be aware though, the MC101 will get hot to the touch during operation. Fan profiles, defining the fan RPM at particular temps, are available via BIOS.
Testing Methodologies, CPU-Z And GPU-Z
Test System Specifications
ARCTIC MC101-A10
APU AMD A10-4600M APU (2.3GHz / 3.2GHz)
Memory Team Group 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-12800 DDR3 SODIMMs
Graphics AMD 7660G
HDD Western Digital 2.5″ Scorpio Blue 5200RPM 1TB (500GB per platter)
Memory Team Group 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-12800 DDR3 SODIMMs
Graphics AMD 7660G
HDD Western Digital 2.5″ Scorpio Blue 5200RPM 1TB (500GB per platter)
Custom PC – Intel Core i5 2500K, ASUS P8P67
CPU Intel Core i5 2500K (Quad-Core 3.3GHz)
Motherboards ASUS P8P67
Memory 4GB Kingston HyperX Genesis CL9 1600MHz
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D14
Graphics ZOTAC GTX 460
HDD Samsung Spinpoint 500GB SATA 2
PSU OCZ Fatal1ty 750W
Motherboards ASUS P8P67
Memory 4GB Kingston HyperX Genesis CL9 1600MHz
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D14
Graphics ZOTAC GTX 460
HDD Samsung Spinpoint 500GB SATA 2
PSU OCZ Fatal1ty 750W
Comparative System Specs:
Benchmarks
The benchmarks chosen test CPU, GPU and overall system performance in a variety of conditions representing both synthetically generated maxima and real-world scenario’s. Although the MC101-A10 is a very different beast from the three desktop systems previously tested, such analysis is useful in assessing how far beyond the comparatively modest aspirations of an HTPC the system can reach. The benchmarks chosen are:
Windows 7 Boot Time – Measured with digital stopclock
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
CrystalDiskMark 3 – Sequential Read/Write
Cinebench 11.5 – CPU Score
AIDA64 – Cache benchmarks
SiSoftware SANDRA 2011 – CPU benchmarks
3DMark 11 – Performance and Extreme preset
Gaming – Elder Scrolls V – Skyrim (Average FPS)
CPU-Z is as yet unable to fully parse the mainboard specs of the MC101-A10, but we do know that is a variant of the A70M (Hudson M3) chipset, manufacturer unknown.
Real World Performance – Windows 7 Boot Time
Synthetic testing is valuable in the examination of systems, but some of the tests may not mean all that much to some readers so this real world test will show the Windows 7 boot time. A digital stopclock is used to record time duration.
For the ARCTIC MC101-A10, a Windows 7 boot time of 29.8 seconds speaks to what may be a pretty efficient BIOS handover process relative to other motherboards rather than zippy HDD. It’s also true to say that the MC101 comes with just Windows installed – ARTIC have decided not to bundle any additional software, pre-installed or otherwise. From our perspective, this is a bonus rather than weakness in the MC101’s arsenal.
Real World Performance – x264 HD 4.0
Simply put, this test measures how fast your machine can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality x264 video clip. What’s x264, you ask? It’s more or less the next-generation Xvid/DivX codec. I think it’s ideal for a benchmark because the application (x264.exe) reports fairly accurate compression results (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encoding process, and it uses multi-core processors very efficiently.
Whilst unable to surpass the desktop systems we’ve previously tested, the AMD Trinity CPU comfortably trounces the Intel Atom CPU of the MC001-BD. Overall results are less than 30% off the Eclipse Stealth, which has a 4-Module Bulldozer FX-8120 at its heart, perhaps attesting to the strides AMD have made with the Piledriver architecture. Whatever the reason, the test reflects somewhat favourably on the MC101-A10.
HDD Performance – CrystalDiskMark 3
CrystalDiskMark is a disk benchmark software that analyses different types of hard drive, and provides a range of benchmarks including sequential write and read statistics in MB/s. CMD 3 is a simple program that takes very little time to set up and is accessible to users with a wide range of technical competences.
As a 2.5″ 5400RPM HDD, you might expect the Read and Write figures of the MC101-A10’s 1TB Western Digital Scorpio Blue to be relatively poor. Well, not a bit of it – the 500GB platters of the Scorpio Blue allow it to sustain over 100MB Read/Write in CrystalDiskMark 3. That’s not SSD performance levels, but it’s not far off the high performance 7200RPM lineup seen in our desktop system results.
HDD Performance – AIDA64
Benchmark pages of AIDA64 Extreme Edition provide several methods to measure system performance. These benchmarks are synthetic, so their results show only the theoretical (maximum) performance of the system.
NOTE Upon running AIDA64 Extreme Edition, we are notified that the current version may not be fully compatible with the MC101’s chipset, perhaps due to the relatively few Trinity systems currently in circulation.
CPU Performance – Cinebench 11.5
CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads, and tends to benefit multi-core systems. This test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects which in turn contain more than 300,000 polygons in total, and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights, shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is displayed in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor with this type of workload. CPU score is monitored.
It’s curious that the MC101-A10 is left trailing in the Cinebench 11.5 CPU Score tests when it was relatively competitive in x264 HD encoding tests. That it couldn’t get closer to the quad-core Intel 2500K custom system is disappointing but not entirely unexpected: the 2500K is clocked at a higher frequency and generally accepted to be capable of higher IPC. As we have come to expect, the MC101-A10 trounces the MC001-BD.
CPU Performance – SiSoftware SANDRA 2012
SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
Continuing somewhat on the downward trend, the MC101-A10’s APU does not seem to agree with SiSoftware Sandra’s benchmarking suite. At best it posts half the performance of the 2500K, in what could be an example of the cumulative effect of tweaks made to an APU as a mobile, rather than desktop part. In processor efficiency testing the A10-4600M falls back towards the Intel Atom of the MC001-BD, but in general it straddles the performance line between low power mobile and mainstream desktop CPUs.
3D Performance – 3DMark 11
Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.
Given the fact that 3D Mark 11 primarily tests GPU performance, it is unsurprising that the MC101-A10 wasn’t able to reach the heights of the desktop systems previously tested. The Custom system, which happens to be the lowest spec of the three, is still complemented by a very respectable ZOTAC GTX 460 1GB. By contrast the ARCTIC MC101-A10’s graphic horsepower comes from the on-die HD 7660G GPU which also utilises system memory rather than high-speed GDDR4/5 RAM.
With that in mind, 30% the performance of the discrete GTX 460 1GB system is not bad, and comfortably exceeds the discrete Radeon HD5430 GPU of the MC001-BD. For an APU the results are excellent and indicate how far the platform has come.
Whether these figures can translate to real-world gaming performance remains to be seen.
3D Performance – Skyrim
It’s important for us to perform a number of game benchmarks as well as the synthetic tests because it allows us to test the 3D performance. FRAPS and in-house benchmarking tools were used to capture average FPS.
NOTE: When playing demanding 3D games we recommend utilising a more aggressive fan profile to prevent overheating and hence CPU throttling.
Yet again, we have to say that for an APU a 20fps average is impressive, but doesn’t really tell the whole story. At no point was the MC101-A10 able to push the 30FPS barrier, only reaching a maximum of 28FPS over the course of a run. Rather than replicate a similar test with another game, we thought it more useful to analyse the performance at lower resolutions and quality levels.
At the lesser resolution of 720p (1280×720) 8xAA, 8xAF – with High Detail presets – the MC101-A10 was able to attain a playable 23.8 FPS. Further tweaking of image quality settings down to 4xAA and 2xAF, but retaining High detail settings, sees a relatively smooth 27.8 FPS. We’re confident with some tinkering Skyrim would be playable at up to 1680*1050 with Medium-High detail settings and a touch of Anti-Aliasing.
Games which stress graphics capability to a lesser degree, including DiRT3 and World of Warcraft, should also benefit commensurately. Whilst we’re not recommending the MC101-A10 for gaming at 1080p, turning down particularly demanding features such as Shadow rendering in modern game software makes this HTPC a surprisingly versatile device for gaming.
Conclusion
Home Theatre PCs continue to be all the rage as the PC moves from the being the sole province of a bedroom or study and into the front room. Some consumers, generally those with an enthusiast background, will choose to build their own; many however will be looking for off-the-shelf solutions which can serve as a PC and replace one or more of the roles of a set-top box. It’s in this vein that the ARCTIC MC101-A10 is designed to operate.
Without doubt the MC101 looks the part. A brushed aluminium finish seemingly goes with everything, which is handy as hiding this system away is a little more difficult than many other HTPC systems on sale today; without a tailored bracket, mounting it to the rear of a TV is much more trouble than it’s worth compared to other HTPCs. Equally, none of the features of the system necessitate taking it out of line of sight: the soft glow of the white power indicator isn’t distracting and built-in IR sensor is sensitive.
The next question is, could you live with the MC101 on a day-to-day basis? Importantly in that respect, during idle and low-load situations the noise profile of the MC101 is very good: whilst not totally silent, the fan tends to kick in infrequently and is a low pitch whoosh rather than whine. During extended or high-load operation, such as gaming, the fan is audible but not unpleasantly so; in this respect the MC101 puts you in mind of an excellently cooled notebook rather than desktop PC. The trade-off is one of radiant heat: the MC101’s chassis becomes quite hot during operation. In the event that either noise or heat becomes a concern, ARCTIC have allowed the changing of fan profiles in BIOS and suggest making them more aggressive if you plan to stretch the units capabilities.
The PC functionality of the MC101 is great, mainly down to the very competitive AMD A10-4600M, 8GB RAM, and WD Scorpio Blue HDD. The system feels quite responsive in most applications and doesn’t register any slow-down during Blu-Ray quality High Definition Video playback. For a system with merely an integrated (on-die) GPU, the MC101 has very accomplished graphical performance: the HD 7660G is capable of very playable Skyrim framerates given modest expectations, and will be ample for most RPGs and casual games suited to front-room play. Modern First Person Shooters, especially those poorly ported to the PC platform, will prove be significantly more of a stretch above 720p.
When it comes to additional connectivity for the MC101, the options are extremely diverse. ARCTIC have taken advantage of the Hudson M3’s chipset features to offer HDMI (including bitstreamed audio), USB3.0, Optical SPDIF and Gigabit Ethernet. Additional and welcome features include powered eSATA (for external optical drives for instance), a 4-in-1 SD Card reader and TRRS jack for headsets. Internally, the system can fit an mSATA SSD and an additional 2.5″ HDD/SSD. The vast majority of bases seem to be covered.
Unfortunately we need to move on to one prominent feature of the system, where not quite everything is quite so rosy. The MC101 includes a DVB-T/ATSC tuner which is capable of decoding SD and HD digital terrestrial signals. In the UK however High Definition Digital Terrestrial signals – generally known as Freeview HD – utilise DVB-T2, which is incompatible with this particular tuner. Windows Media Centre allows the MC101-A10 to operate as a Freeview PVR with only a few minutes of set-up, but lack of Freeview HD compatibility will be a deal-breaker for many at any price. We should note that those looking to use the MC101 as a PVR will need to acquire an MCE Media Center remote.
And so we come finally to the price point: the reviewed system has an MSRP of €539.00/$699.00 excl. VAT, which we project to an approx UK street price of £550 Inc VAT. You certainly get a lot for the price, including Windows 7 Home Premium pre-installed, an excellent HDD, 8GB of high quality Team Group RAM and the additional option of installing an off-the-shelf SSD. On the other hand, the lack of Freeview HD is disappointing given the UK’s drive towards broadcast HD TV through the airwaves.
It’s also worth mentioning the intriguing barebone options, all of which feature the same attractive brushed-aluminium chassis. ARCTIC offer barebone systems with AMD A10-4600M or A8-4500M APUs that do not include Windows 7, HDD or 8GB RAM option, granting much more flexibility for the enthusiast. Keenly priced from €383.20/$479.00 for the A10-4600M model, we can definitely imagine enthusiasts looking for a sleek HTPC choosing to assemble such a system with an HDD and SSD for even quieter operation and greater responsiveness.
Overall we loved the look of the ARCTIC MC101-A10, appreciated its responsiveness despite a mechanical HDD and were left impressed with its gaming potential. Noise, so often a bugbear with off-the-shelf HTPC – wasn’t a significant issue during long-term idle or low load operation. The system operates well as a Freeview PVR, but lack of Freeview HD compatibility in the UK is problematic. Overall, considering the bundle and assuming a projected £550 inc. VAT price point, we’re happy to present the MC101-A10 with a Silver Award.
Pros
+ Strong performance for an HTPC
+ Good overall choice of hardware
+ Potential for internal and external storage expansion
+ Excellent external connectivity
Cons
– Unit casing becomes hot during extended operation
– DVB-T Tuner only allows non-HD Freeview content in the UK
– Price
+ Strong performance for an HTPC
+ Good overall choice of hardware
+ Potential for internal and external storage expansion
+ Excellent external connectivity
Cons
– Unit casing becomes hot during extended operation
– DVB-T Tuner only allows non-HD Freeview content in the UK
– Price
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net. Thanks to ARCTIC for providing today’s review sample.
