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 ESTTest Setup
| Processor |
AMD Fusion E-350 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 1.6 GHz |
| Motherboards |
ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe ECS HDC-I Zotac FUSION350-A-E |
| Cooling | Onboard |
| Power Supply | Silverstone 80 PLUS Silver |
| Memory |
G.Skill Sniper DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24 2x4GB Kit, 1.25V G.Skill SODIMM DDR3-1066 9-9-9-24 2x4GB Kit 1.5V |
| Memory Settings | Auto |
| Video Cards |
XFX HD 5850 1GB ECS GTX 580 1536MB |
| Video Drivers |
Catalyst 10.12 NVIDIA Drivers 275.33 |
| Hard Drive | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| Optical Drive | LG GH22NS50 |
| Case | Open Test Bed - CoolerMaster Lab V1.0 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit |
| SATA Testing | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| USB 2/3 Testing | Patriot 64GB SuperSonic USB 3.0 |
Many thanks to...
G.Skill have happily provided us with a set of their low voltage, gamer oriented, Sniper series DDR3 memory for this a future reviews, where low power usage may be of interest to the consumer. This 2x4 GB kit (D3-12800CL9D-8GBSR2) runs at 1600 MHz speeds with 9-9-9-24 2N timings at 1.25 V, and is currently available for $90.
What's actually interesting for me is to see how the power consumption readings change when going from normal 1.5 V memory, to the low voltage 1.25 V stuff. Technically we should see a power drop, but after playing around with the ASUS board in this review and the memory, the most I could predict (with general power levels fluctuating +/- 1 W as you would expect) is 1-2W maximum saving, if any at all. Over a year, it's true it's not that much power, and in a 60W system we're only talking 1% - it's more of a tool to say that people are being energy conscious (in my view).
G.Skill have also supplied us with a set of DDR3-1066 C9 SO-DIMM for the Zotac board review. This 2x4GB kit (F3-10666CL9D-8GBSQ) runs at 1066 Mhz with 9-9-9-24 timings at 1.5 V, and is currently available for $63.
Comparison to Previous Results
Where applicable, the results in this review are directly compared to the following chipsets and boards which we have reviewed previously:
Power Consumption
The Zotac scores best across the board in terms of power consumption.
(Note: I was using a less than ideal power supply for the power draw tests which was very inefficient in this range (<20% of maximum power), and unfortunately I don't have anything more appropriate at hand to test with. The comparisons (I believe) between the boards are more than relevant though. I will hopefully rectify this in future reviews of lower powered systems.)
CPU Temperatures
Given that both the Zotac and the ASUS boards are passive, you would expect their temperatures across the board to be higher than that of the ECS. However, the ECS has a small heatsink, meaning at idle the CPU is actually quite warm, and the fan spins up according to the temperature. Given a flat 45 Celsius from the ECS, I redid the tests by cooling the heatsink with other fans, removing them, and letting it warm up at idle, and ended with the same result. Overall, the Zotac performs the best out of these three.
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ET - Saturday, July 16, 2011 - link
Here are a few links to E-350 reviews using a desktop PSU. Not a comprehensive list by any means:http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-brazos-platform-...
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/sapphire_f...
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/displa...
http://www.eteknix.com/motherboards/jetway-nc85-e3...
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/4093/asus_e35m1_i...
And of course Anandtech's first review of the platform:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4134/the-brazos-revi...
ET - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
In the conclusion you say about the ECS: "Having 33% free of anything is usually a good idea, so when it comes part of the package with very little increase in power consumption, it is a good thing. As a result, all the benchmarks and all the games had much, much higher scores than the other boards we tested."Unfortunately these gaming performance figures don't appear in the article. This looks like an oversight that needs to be corrected.
Mitalca - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
I second that.Through the review there's a lot of times when Ian talks about the marvell the ECS did with the 33% OC. Then why you didn't show the results?
One of the bigest flaws in this review, that make a lot of people suspect of a way-too-much-biased review.
Testing with a 580 is ridiculous, even if you want to "provide a plausible maximum ceiling". I spend $500 and I only get 50% more frames. What about a U$ 50-100 gpu?? If the CPU and the memory are by far the bottleneck, we should see similar results.
And, once you show the huge benefits that overclocking does to the iGPU, why not try it with the dGPU?
ET - Saturday, July 16, 2011 - link
The main thing I would like to see added to the discrete GPU test is an AMD GPU. The CPU usage of NVIDIA and AMD drivers are different, so results may be different.I don't think that a discrete GPU is worth using with the E-350 in any case, and the test with the GeForce 580 pretty much proved that. It's just too CPU limited.
xorbit - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
This review is a steaming pile. At least it lends credibility that Anandtech might not be biased, just woefully incompetent.An HTPC review without HTPC benchmarks and coupling the chips with impropper PSU/GPUs.
silverblue - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
Without wanting to start a huge squabble, if you guys think you could do better...lestr - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
Tom's already did: Daily Hardware 7/6. 8 boards with more relevant tests though somewhat incomplete.My big question is: WHAT is AMD afraid of? SUCCESS? AMD fanboy but when they could really kick a** they give us another "almost".
Another question: Does the PCIe slot support anything other than graphics? Can I stuff a Hauppauge 2250 or a Ceton card in it? This is totally ignored on almost ALL current ITX boards. You're about as likely to win the Kentucky Derby with a 3-legged horse as playing any games on this platform. What's the point?
The E450 (1.65 / 1333 / HD 6320) is due out any time. Standards on this platform should include 6 audio outs (hello Asus!), mPCIe, fp USB3.. how about DUAL channel memory? What's a few more watts anyway? Is 35W APU too many? RAID?
I wish AMD would pull out all the stops and do this little thing right.. entice the partners as well. If they can't do anything else but bury Atom/NV ... AMD needs to win something sometime.. why not NOW?
Any comments, Ian?
mino - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
Brazos is sigle channle.There are 35W Llano E2 series APU's on the way.
Brazos is SOLD OUT for 3 quarters allready ... talk about AMD being afraid ...
medi01 - Sunday, July 17, 2011 - link
Idiot detected.Wander7 - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
Just by looking at the two heatsinks and not doing any measurements, it looks like the Asus' heatsink is suffering from air stagnation because the fins are too close together....