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 ESTBoard Features
| ECS HDC-I | |
| Market Segment | HTPC |
| CPU Interface | FT1 BGA |
| CPU Support | Fusion |
| Chipset | Hudson-M1 (A50M) |
| Memory Slots |
Two DDR3 DIMM Maximum 8 GB Non-ECC Unbuffered |
| Expansion Slots |
One PCIe x16 (x4 speed) One mini-PCIe for Wifi |
| Onboard |
4 x SATA 6Gbps Ports 2 x Fan Headers 1 x Front Panel Audio Connector 2 x USB 2.0 header |
| Onboard LAN | Atheros AR8151 Gigabit (10/100/1000) Ethernet |
| Onboard Audio | VIA® VT1708B 8-channel audio |
| Power Connectors | 24-pin ATX Power Connector |
| Fan Headers |
1 x CPU (4-pin) 1 x SYS (3-pin) |
| IO Panel |
6 x USB 2.0 HDMI VGA DVI 1 x eSATA 6 Gbps Gigabit Ethernet 2 x USB 3.0 (blue) Bluetooth Optical SPDIF Output 8-channel Audio |
| Warranty Period | 3 Years |
In The Box
ECS usually are quite good in what goodies get packed with a motherboard, though with a Fusion board, there aren't many available to include.
4x SATA cables (locking)
Wifi card, cable and aerial
2x brackets for the aerial, one half height
Manual
User Guide
Driver CD
The inclusion of the brackets is useful if you're using a case with two slots. The half height one is probably a good idea for thin system design. However they've had to include this here rather than as part of the I/O panel, but in return there are a couple more USB ports on the back.
Software
The ECS software range hasn't changed much since we last reviewed it - eSF is the smart fan tool, eBLU is the BIOS Live Update utility, and eDLU is essentially a weblink to a list of the latest drivers for the motherboard. As always, the Smart Fan utility works quite well, allowing for a temperature gradient to be set for fan speed - though this time it seems you can have a dual ramping system.
eBLU checks ECS servers online for the latest BIOS and compares it to the one currently in use.
eDLU is still a relatively simple program compared to its counterparts from other companies - again, I'd like to see this program actually list the current drivers on the system, and you can pick and choose the new ones directly from ECS all from within the software.
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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....