Fusion E-350 Review: ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe, ECS HDC-I and Zotac FUSION350-A-E
by Ian Cutress on July 14, 2011 11:00 AM ESTECS BIOS' of past have been rather lacking, in terms of options and design. Sadly, the HDC-I is no exception to this rather flat rule. The take on it seems to be 'it works, so much for the user experience'. Options are, for the most part, spread out across menus rather than being consolidated, and there's no serious information connection. Take the main page - there's no mention of the motherboard type, the CPU model currently in it, the speed of the processor, the amount of memory or the temperature. This information is on other screens, but it's nice to have it on the first screen at least.
By default the SATA ports are set to IDE rather than AHCI, but the money shot of the BIOS is in the 'Frequency/Voltage Control' Menu. The first option here is the 'Turbo Mode', with the help message of 'Turbo Mode Good Lucky'.
What this option does is impressive. Change it to the enabled setting, and the board will apply a 33% overclock to the processor, and automatically adjust the voltage. With this option as standard, they've decided against adding any other overclock options (like the ASUS board) apart from the memory, where DDR3-800 to DDR3-1333 are selectable (which equates to DDR3-1064 to DDR3-1777 when overclocked), as well as the major subtimings. By default, DDR3-800 and 7-7-7-18 were selected when left on auto on our Patriot Viper Xtreme set.
The other positive feature of the BIOS is the boot override - something every BIOS should have by now. If you want a one-time boot from a separate device (CD, DVD, USB) then this is the option to do it. It thankfully accepts NTFS file systems (unlike some ASRock boards) as well.
Overclocking
In terms of overclocking, there's not much to say, apart from the turbo mode available in the BIOS, adding 33% clock speed to 2.13 GHz. The default bus speed flickers between 100 MHz and 102.1 MHz, so at overclock it flickers between 133 MHz and 135.1 MHz, giving a little advantage over other boards. This 33% boost also affects the memory, turning the DDR3-1333 setting into DDR3-1772, which is also a large improvement. There are no overclocking options for the OS though.
The overclock gave a boost of 34.5% boost to our single threaded 3D Movement benchmark, and a 33.0% boost to the multithreaded version. In terms of power, during video, the overclocked version consumed 5W more as a peak value, though this difference was not seen in Metro2033 or OCCT.
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triclops41 - Thursday, July 14, 2011 - link
I think Starcraft 2 benchmarks should be included. It is a popular game that can run well on mid and lower end systems.I know it can almost run at lowest settings with the E-350 at stock. But I would really like to know how well SC2 runs when the E-350 is overclocked to 2.1Ghz, considering it was CPU limited before.
Phynaz - Thursday, July 14, 2011 - link
Not single test doing video decode and display = fail.Finally - Thursday, July 14, 2011 - link
...you are taking a Bobcat APU (that's made for netbooks, HTPC and other low power usage devices) and test it on ground of performance by pairing it with a 1000W power supply. (Ian was clever enough not to mention his batshit crazy choice by simply stating "Silverstone 80+ Silver" on the hardware page - a quick check on geizhals.at reveals that there are only 4 power supplies that fall into this category, starting @ 700W and going up to 1000W -> http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?cat=gehps&xf=1...To further add insult to injury he then pairs this netbook APU with a Nvidia 580GTX only to finish this ridiuculousness for good with overclocking the shit out of the CPU...
Come on? What will be tested next? How far the SoC can be thrown when it's raining?
The thing I like best on AnandTech is how your pro-Intel-agitprop is actually brought to words: "Hudson-M1 - why would I want it?" - Imagine this same question being asked when Intel's Atom platform is the topic of the day... mark it well, because that will be the moment hell freezes over...
AnandThenMan - Thursday, July 14, 2011 - link
You're wasting your time. AMD will never get a fair shake on this site, not going to happen. Every notice how there is never a situation where a "mistake" or other choice accidentally gave AMD an unfair advantage? Why is that? Because these choices are on purpose, and are carefully selected to minimize the AMD product as much as possible, while still trying to maintain the appearance of impartiality.This site is a shill of Intel, and the only reason people don't believe that is because it's a hard thing to accept. But the evidence is overwhelming. At one time, there was an entire section of this website dedicated to only Intel, anyone else remember that?
Broheim - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
if the reviews bother you that much, then why do you come back? is your life really that empty?medi01 - Sunday, July 17, 2011 - link
Somebody has to compensate for shit in articles at least in comments.Broheim - Sunday, July 17, 2011 - link
if "somebody" is dissatisfied, then "somebody" can go make their own hardware review site and review stuff like "somebody" wants to...in the meantime, "somebody" doesn't have to "compensate for shit".
IanCutress - Thursday, July 14, 2011 - link
As I've mentioned, the PSU issue is purely due to what I have available for testing. The GTX580 test, also as I've mentioned, was to provide a plausible maximum ceiling in those tests, and to explore the CPU power with the PCIe x4 against the iGPU. Regarding overclocking - there are people who will overclock everything and anything, regardless of what it's used for. In my mind, it's a valid test - if the platform has headroom with no negative consequences, that's something to look out for, and which to a certain extent the ECS board provided.I'm neither pro-Intel or pro-AMD. I review what I feel is right for the time and situation, and what circumstances allow. We have a series of 9-series boards to look at in the near future, but so far this year all the releases for me to focus on have been Intel based, especially in the motherboard segment. The comment regarding 'why would I want it' was the exact speculative comment I made when the boards came through my door. It's what I ask every board that passes through my hands - if a reviewer didn't ask this, there would be no point him or her reviewing it.
I'm more than open to suggestions by email if there are other tests you think should be added. If there is time and an apt reason to run them (and everyone will be able to interpret the results), I will take a look - the development of testing is always fluid.
Ian
AnandThenMan - Thursday, July 14, 2011 - link
In the interest of full disclosure and proper review procedures, please correct the chart to indicate the make/model/wattage of the power supply, instead of simply "Silverstone 80 PLUS Silver".andymcca - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
^^ This.And honestly, it should be noted clearly, in plain sight, that power consumption figures are totally meaningless at <5% PSU load.
It's fine that this is the only PSU you have on hand, but (lacking DC power figures, which obviously require special equipment) a low power PSU, preferably a PicoPSU (with a decent brick) or equivalent, is the only reasonable choice here for power testing. Under-loading a PSU can give very misleading results, which deserve a footnote.