Arctic MC001-BD Entertainment Center Review (BD/passive)

1. Introduction2. Arctic Cooling MC001-BD (Bundle)3. Arctic Cooling MC001-BD (External)4. Arctic Cooling MC001-BD (Internal)5. Bios, Hardware, Software Configuration & Testing Methodology6. Synthetic: PCMark Vantage7. Synthetic: PCMark 78. Synthetic: Cinebench R11 32 bit.9. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra10. Synthetic: CrystalDiskMark11. Synthetic: HDTach 3.0.4.0.12. Synthetic: ATTO Disk Benchmark13. Real World: BluRay Playback Performance14. Real World: Flash HD Performance15. Real World: Media Encoding16. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark V2.017. Gaming: Left 4 Dead 218. Gaming: Dirt 319. Gaming: COD: Black Ops20. Technical: Thermal Dynamics21. Technical: Power Consumption22. Closing Thoughts23. View All Pages

It has been a really strong year for Arctic Cooling as they have continued to expand upon their product portfolio, even diversing into a range of rather interesting remote control toys, for land and sea. Today we are reviewing their latest Entertainment Center, a sleek HTPC with an ATOM processor, AMD graphics, BluRay drive and 4GB of DDR3 memory. Unlike many other ‘all in one' systems we have reviewed lately they also include the Windows 7 operating system, so there is no fiddling around with discs and drivers when you open the box. With a huge selection of ATOM based media centers already available, can the MC001-BD offer something new for the consumer?

One of the key selling points is that the MC001-BD Entertainment Center is completely passively cooled, and therefore silent. This alone will pique the interest of many enthusiast users who want a noiseless, yet capable media system for the bedroom or living room.

Arctic Cooling have four versions of the entertainment center available. The MC001-E (barebones), MC001-DVD (DVD player), MC001-DVDS (DVD player and 120GB SSD), and the model we are reviewing today, the MC001-BD, which is supplied with a BluRay player.

CPU	Dual Core Intel Atom D525 (1.8GHz)
Graphics	ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5430, 512MB GDDR3
Chipset	Intel NM10
Memory	4GB DDR3 1333MHz
Storage	500GB 7200RPM 16MB cache HDD
OS	Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
ODD	Blu-ray 4x
Additional Software	CyberLink PowerDVD 10
LAN	10/100/1000 Ethernet
Wireless LAN	IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
Front I/O Ports	IR receiver x 1 USB 3.0 port x 2 3.5mm stereo I/O jack x 2 (Headphone, Mic) 4-in-1 memory card reader x 1
Rear I/O Ports	3.5mm audio I/O jack x 6 (7.1 OUT x 4, LINE IN x 1, Mic x 1) SPDIF port/optical x 1 VGA port x 1 HDTV interface x 1 (HDTV cable included) Ethernet RJ45 port x 1 USB 2.0 port x 5 DC power jack x 1
TV Tuner	DVB-T / DVB-C (optional)
Power Supply	19V DC 60W
Volume	1.5 L
Dimensions (Product)	w/o stand: 143 L x 40 W x 266 H mm w/ stand: 161 L x 65 W x 275 H mm
Dimensions (Packaging)	205 L x 130 W x 329 H mm
Limited Warranty	2 years
EAN-Code	English Windows EU: 872767004399 UK: 872767004320 US: 872767004252
EAN-Code	Multilanguage Windows EU: 872767004405 UK: 872767004337 US: 872767004269
itemnumber	DPACO-MC10001-GB
UPC
Weight	2.65 kg

The Arctic Cooling MC001-BD arrives in a plain white box with a high resolution image of the product on the front and a list of key selling points on the left.

Inside are two packages. One contains the unit itself protected between thick cardboard and wrapped in a felt foam. There is a quick guide showing environmental concerns.

The bundle includes the operating system box, Cyberlink bluray playback software, and a user manual. There is also a wireless antenna, power supply and Arctic Cooling branded HDMI cable.

The unit itself is a very attractive design, half finished in piano black and the other half in aluminum. With the stand it measures 143mmx40x266mm

As the images above show, the arctic cooling logo is set on the black side, with both panels having air vents cut into them.

The base is supplied attached to the main chassis, but it can be removed with 3 screws. There is a felt surround on the base to increase stability and stop movement.

The front of the MC001-BD is populated with an IR receiver, 2 USB 3.0 ports, a headphone and microphone port, and a 4in1 memory card reader. The rear has audio ports for 7.1 audio out, with a SPDIF, optical out. There is a VGA and HDMI port, but no DVI port. There are five USB 2.0 ports, with a Gigabit lan connector. There is also a power connector and wireless header for the antenna booster.

Removing the panel is straightforward, but the base has to be detached first. There are several yellow isolation pads to keep contact away from the metal insides.

As this unit is passively cooled we can see that the ATOM processor is being cooled by a rather large heatpipe based heatsink.

The design lends itself to a very clean, cable free layout. The wireless card is positioned to the far corner ensuring maximum reception strength.

The system is populated with 2x2GB of DDR3 memory, from ‘Team'. The TSD32048M SO-DIMM modules are rated to 1333mhz with 9-9-9-24 timings.

The American Megatrends bios is a fully featured ‘no frills' configuration, although we would assume that the majority of people buying this system will never need to even touch it as everything is configured ‘out of the box'.

As this system is passively cooled, there is no need to manually configure or tweak fan parameters in the bios.

The Arctic Cooling MC001-BD Entertainment Center is built around the Intel ATOM D525 processor, which is a dual core design which operates at 1.8ghz. It is built on the 45nm process and has 512k of Level 2 cache. Onboard graphics are supplied by the ATI Mobility HD5430 GPU which has 80 unifed shaders and 512MB of GDDR3 memory via a 64 bit memory interface. The core is clocked to 500mhz and the memory operates at 800mhz. While the memory is branded 1333mhz, the bios speeds are limited to 800mhz with 6-6-6-15 timings at 1T.

The Windows Experience Index is not the most exhaustive of test results, but we try to include it when possible as a point of interest, and topic of conversation. The overall score is limited to 3.5 by the ATOM processor, otherwise it would score 4.9.

The system automatically pre-configures setup on first boot which will take around 10 minutes. Above, an image of the installed applications right after initial startup. It is a clean configuration with no ‘crap ware' installed, just essential drivers and tools.

Arctic Cooling are using the 32 bit version of Windows 7 for the MC001-BD, which is a surprising decision. They claim on their webpage that “The 32 bit Windows consumes fewer resources and offers lower loading time than its 64 bit counterpart while performing at the same level for most applications.” We can't say that we agree and with 4GB of memory installed it would make more sense to the use the 64 bit version of Windows 7. They are using software which utilises the memory above 3.25GB as a ‘cache' system.

PCMark Vantage
PCMark 7
Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
CrystalDiskMark
HD Tach
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 11
HQV Benchmark 2.0
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
Call Of Duty: Black Ops
Dead Space 2
Dirt 3
Left4Dead2

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Lacie 730 Monitor (Image Quality testing)
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Kill A Watt Meter
Nikon D3X SLR, 60mm Nikon Lens with R1C1 Kit (4 flashes)
Panasonic Lumix TZ10

PCMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows Vista offering one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts.

A PCMark score is a measure of your computer’s performance across a variety of common tasks such as viewing and editing photos, video, music and other media, gaming, communications, productivity and security.

From desktops and laptops to workstations and gaming rigs, by comparing your PCMark Vantage score with other similar systems you can find the hardware and software bottlenecks that stop you getting more from your PC.

An overall score of 2,254 points is certainly not going to win any performance awards, but with an ATOM processor at the center of the system, it is to be expected.

PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use.

Our final score of 1021 points is pretty much in line with other Intel Atom systems we have reviewed in the past.

CINEBENCH R11.5 is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.

If you are into rendering on any level, then this is not the system for you. The Intel ATOM D525 is not an ideal partner for serious 3D demands and rendering scenes will take much longer than even an entry level Intel Core i3.

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’s) 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.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

The ATOM platform doesn't generate particularly impressive results in SiSoft Sandra, however it shows us that this particular system doesn't have a problem with any of the bandwidth oriented results.

A very important part of overall system responsiveness is down to hard drive performance. We use two of our favourite benchmark utilities Crystalmark X64 Edition and HD Tach to rate the SSD and HDD.

The 7,200 rpm Hitachi hard drive gives promising results for a 2.5 inch mechanical drive, scoring 103.9MB/s in the sequential read test and 104.2 MB/s in the sequential write test.

I have been using HDTach for many years now and always find it is an invaluable benchmark to ascertain potential levels of performance. HD Tach is a low level hardware benchmark for random access read/write storage devices such as hard drives, removable drives (ZIP/JAZZ), flash devices, and RAID arrays. HD Tach uses custom device drivers and other low level Windows interfaces to bypass as many layers of software as possible and get close to the physical performance of the device.

HD Tach 3.0.4.0. tends to underscore drives, and we can see the average transfer rate is around 82.1 MB/s with burst speeds up to 236.2 MB/s. Fairly healthy results for a mechanical drive.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

Average speeds over 100 MB/s in ATTO highlight that this is a decent mechanical drive. It is still obviously much slower than an SSD drive.

Our good friends at Cyberlink kindly supplied the software for our BluRay and conversion tests.

Cyberlink PowerDVD 11 is one of the finest solutions for the BluRay experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the new Bluray Disc of TRON LEGACY. Hardware acceleration was enabled.

With hardware acceleration enabled, CPU time averaged around 22 percent which is a very good result and indicates that there are plenty of CPU cycles left over for other tasks.

Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online.

The CPU averages around 21 percent during playback, dropping to 13 percent a couple of times and rising to 28 percent under load.

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 3.3GB 720p MKV file (2h:12mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.

The ATOM processor is not an ideal choice for such an intensive task, taking almost 1 hour and 9 minutes to complete the encoding. A fast Core i7 can complete this same task in around 10 minutes.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evaluate motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on BluRay. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content, so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

Read our initial analysis over here.

	Arctic Cooling MC001-BD
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	5
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	3
Roller Coaster	3
Ferris Wheel	3
Bridge Traffic	3
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	3
Roller Coaster	3
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	2
Ferris Wheel	3
Skin Tones	7
Total	179

This system achieves a total score of around 180 point which is very good, making it ideal for connection to a quality HDTV.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter game. It is the sequel to Valve Corporation’s award-winning Left 4 Dead.

Like the original, Left 4 Dead 2 is set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic pandemic, and focuses on four survivors fighting against hordes of the infected. The survivors must fight their way through levels, interspersed with safe houses that act as checkpoints, with the goal of reaching a rescue vehicle at the campaign’s finale. The gameplay is procedurally altered by an artificial intelligence engine dubbed the “Director” that monitors the players’ performance and adjust the scenario to provide a dynamic challenge. Several new features have been introduced: new types of infected, melee weapons, and a story-arc that connects the game’s five campaigns together.

We had to lower the image quality considerably to get the frame rate playable throughout. On the most intensive section of our game environment, the frame rate dropped to borderline 25 fps a couple of times.

Dirt 3 is a rallying videogame and the third in the Dirt series of the Colin McRae Rally series, developed and published by Codemasters, although the “Colin McRae” tag has been completely removed from this iteration (having been previously been removed from American versions of previous games in the series).

We used the lowest image quality preset and disabled AA. The game was mostly playable, but there were times when the frame rate took a dive, noticeably with many cars in the field of vision.

Call of Duty: Black Ops (or simply Black Ops) is a first-person shooter video game developed by Treyarch, published by Activision. Within 24 hours of going on sale, the game sold more than 7 million copies, 5.6 million in the U.S. and 1.4 million in the UK, breaking the record set by its predecessor Modern Warfare 2 by some 2.5 million copies. Black Ops is a first-person shooter. The player assumes the role of a foot soldier who can wield various firearms, of which two at a time can be carried; throw grenades and other explosives; and use other equipment as weapons. A player close enough to an enemy can kill with one knife blow. A character can take three stances: standing, crouching, or prone; each affects rate of movement, accuracy, and stealth.

At 720P the hardware struggles to maintain playable frame rates, dropping to 15 fps in a few of the environmental sections. Lowering the resolution to 1024×768 helps a little, but frame rates still struggle to remain playable at all times.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 23c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.

Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by running Furmark and Cinema 4D together for 2 hours.

Being a passively cooled machine means that the temperatures slowly rise over time, reaching a maximum of around 84c from the GPU and 80c from the CPU.

To test power consumption today we are using a Kill A Watt power meter. We loaded the system with some games and measured results at full load, when watching a movie and when idle.

System power drain is around 34 watts when idling, and this rises to over 50 watts when fully loaded. Excellent results indicating that this system could easily be left on 24/7 without causing a serious impact on your electricity bill.

We have reviewed many Intel ATOM based media centers over the last year, but the Arctic Cooling MC001-BD Entertainment Center is slightly different. It is the first ‘all in one' system we have reviewed which is completely passively cooled. For this talking point alone, it has been an interesting review.

While we have tested many quiet systems in our labs in recent months, the MC001-BD is going to target a very specific audience – those who are exceptionally sensitive to noise emissions. Whether it is in a living room, or bedroom environment, this Entertainment Center will reside in the corner of the room and no one will ever know it is turned on. There are of course some safety precautions to take into consideration. It should not be installed inside a sealed cabinet with no air flow and the vents should have enough breathing room to passively transfer heat outwards. While this seems like ‘common sense' there are some people who might not pay attention and position it in a rack under a television with several other pieces of audio equipment on top, blocking the vents. This could be a recipe for disaster, long term.

At the heart of this system is the Intel ATOM D525 processor. This has been designed for general ‘everyday' duties and high definition media playback, and when used in this manner it is perfectly capable. When pushed hard you begin to see the limitations of the low power technology and it can prove frustrating, especially if you frequently use a media center for more demanding tasks. Equally so the AMD HD5430 is not the ideal solution for gaming, as our testing has indicated, failing to even generate playable frame rates at 720p with some of the less demanding engines on the market, at the lowest possible image quality settings. However, when used as a hardware acceleration device, such as for BluRay discs and HD media files, it helps ensure the smoothest possible frame rates.

Connectivity is first class, with HDMI, USB 3.0, Gigabit Lan, 7:1 audio and wireless capabilities all offered by default. The inclusion of a quality BluRay player and Windows 7 operating system also mean that the end user has very little to tweak or install before it can be used.

The Arctic Cooling MC001-BD is one of the best purchasing decisions if you are looking for a silent, high definition media device for a living or bedroom, but the hardware does limit it in other areas. A trade-off however that a specific audience will not mind making.

Pros:

• Silent
• Appearance is quite attractive
• Windows 7 operating system is part of the bundle, so no install needed
• low power drain
• designed for high definition media playback
• Wireless capabilities are integrated

Cons:

• Far from ideal for gaming, even at lower settings
• 32bit operating system, not 64 bit
• Positioning is critical due to fanless design

Kitguru says: An excellent media center for those people who don't want to deal with any fan noise at all.

Become a Patron!