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 ESTFeatures
| Zotac FUSION350-A-E | |
| Market Segment | HTPC |
| CPU Interface | FT1 BGA |
| CPU Support | Fusion |
| Chipset | Hudson-M1 (A50M) |
| Memory Slots |
Two DDR3 SO-DIMM Maximum 8 GB Non-ECC Unbuffered |
| Expansion Slots |
One open ended PCIe 4x One mini-PCIe for Wifi |
| Onboard |
4 x SATA 6Gbps Ports 1 x COM port header 1 x Optical SPDIF header 2 x Fan Headers 1 x Front Panel Audio Connector 1 x USB 2.0 header 1 x USB 3.0 header |
| Onboard LAN | Realtek Gigabit (10/100/1000) Ethernet |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek 8-channel audio |
| Power Connectors | 24-pin ATX Power Connector |
| Fan Headers |
1 x CPU (4-pin) 1 x SYS (4-pin) |
| IO Panel |
1 x PS2 2 x USB 3.0 (VIA Controller) 1 x Display Port 1 x HDMI 1 x DVI 2 x Wifi Antenna 4 x USB 2.0 1 x eSATA 3 Gbps 1 x Gigabit Ethernet (Realtek) 1 x Optical SPDIF Out 8 Channel HD Audio (Realtek) |
| BIOS Version | 2K110616 |
| Warranty Period | 2 Years |
In The Box
3 SATA cables
I/O shield
Two antenna
DVI to VGA converter
Driver CD
User Manual
Like the other packages here, I'm not that impressed by the Zotac board. But as it's now available for $125 with rebate, the price is more palatable with this.
Software
In a bizarre twist, the Zotac CD doesn't actually have any utilities with it, and suggests that the user visit the website to download 'more updated drivers and utilities'. Honestly, this is not on - if there are no utilities for this motherboard Zotac, say so. If there are, at least offer working versions along with the motherboard.
However, going through the driver installation is a mini-ordeal in itself. There's no 'install all' option, so each of the drivers needs to run through its own installer, which requires significant interaction from the user.
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mschira - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
I find it hard to believe how calmly the praises for the 33% overclock are. Just face it the Lano platform can use all the speed it can get, and that 33% sounds healthy enough.At 1.6 I think Lano is slightly underpowered, at 2.1Ghz, well slightly less i.e. not anymore.
It hard to understand why AMD isn't coming up with a 2Ghz variant of Lano. I fact I find it very concerning. It looks as if AMD is just not determined enough to compete with Intel.
M.
Rick83 - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
E350 is not Llano.And mini ITX E350 is not meant for overclocking and performance.
Thus I find this to be a bit of a non-feature. Better to get a passively cooled 32nm Intel S1156 Pentium, if you need more performance.
As far as I know, the only drawback this level of performance has, is when flash movies at extreme settings are played. While this may be important for some, it's not needed in a general browsing/mail machine that does the odd office application. Nor in most home cinemas, where local mkvs or disks are played.
Yet for this overclock you give up on passive cooling and instead get a tiny, and presumably relatively whiny fan. Not worth the hassle.
AmdInside - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
I have an older ITX case I would like to continue using and it puzzles me why almost all of these mobos use a 24-pin connector when there are so many ITX cases with a 20-pin connector.andymcca - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
Does anyone spend money on WHS for NAS? Seems like a waste. (Don't get me wrong, I see some reasons to get it if text scares you and you are doing something more complicated. And have money to burn. Or live on a pirate ship.)RAID is supported in the Linux kernel, and is better than any junky fakeRAID a motherboard might provide. And with 6 SATA 6Gb/s ports, this makes a damn fine NAS!
andymcca - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
Though the lack of 1000 Gb/s ethernet is sad :(andymcca - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
I'd settle for 1Gb/s :)Rick83 - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
which all of these boards have.burpnrun - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
Firstly, the author starts by positioning the AMD CPU/boards in a HTPC context. Then promply forgets any consideration of a HTPC role. Not one video/encoding/decoding/transcoding benchmark. Instead, "games" and "computational" benchmarks. WTF? I'm wondering, is this guy competent?Secondly, as other posters have commented, the author's/article's power consumption measurements are so outlandish as to be laughed at. I mean, seriously warped versus reality. Incompetence (and determined reluctance to remeasure/fix) is brashly showing through at this point.
The coup-de-gace of this idiotic review, though, is the inclusion of a Nvidia 580GTX for games, a role the Brazos CPU/Chipsets are not positioned towards. A 580GTX? In a 4x PCIe slot? And there are problems? WOW. I wonder why? At this point I concluded that not only was the author totally incompetent, but the motive of the article was also highly suspect.
Until Arnand cleans up this stinking pile of pseudo "review", I'm not coming back here. I'm not a Intel or AMD fanboy, but this is such an incompetent, biased, purposeless (or was there a mission here that tried to be masked by "review" status?) article that a line has to be drawn in the sand against outright c*rap "reviews" like this.
Anand, you should be ashamed to even have this piece of junk on your site!
ET - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
If this is the worst review you've read in 15 years, uou must not read a lot of reviews, so your threat of not coming back probably means that the next review you'll read in five years will be on another site. If you really want, I can point you to a lot of other sites with worse reviews.Not saying that this review is perfect, but come on, lots of other reviews of the E-350 have done exactly the same things, and some of your issues are nit-picking. Would you had been happier if a lower end discrete card was put in the PCIe slot? Putting a very high end one just illustrates how CPU bound this platform is.
AnandThenMan - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
"lots of other reviews of the E-350 have done exactly the same things"Post the links, I'd like to read them. Thanks.