ASUS E35M1-M Pro Review - Anyone For Fusion?
by Brendan van Varik on October 25, 2011 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Asus
- Motherboards
- Fusion
- E-350
Test Setup
| Processor |
AMD Fusion APU E-350 Dual-Core 1.6 GHz Up to 2 "Bobcat" cores, FT1 BGA 80 Stream Processors, 500 MHz |
| Motherboards | ASUS E35M1-M PRO |
| Cooling | Standard Cooling |
| Power Supply | Jeantech 250 W |
| Memory | G.Skill RipjawsX F3-14900CL9Q-16GBXL |
| Memory Settings | DDR3 1333MHz - 9-9-9-24 1T at 1.5 V |
| Hard Drive | OCZ Vertex 3 240GB |
| Optical Drive | Samsung SH-S223Q |
| Case | Dimastech Bench Table |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate |
| SATA Testing | OCZ Vertex 3 240GB |
| USB 2/3 Testing | Patriot 64GB SuperSonic USB 3.0 |
Many thanks to…
Before we go any further, I'd like to take the time to thank G.Skill for providing us with a set of their RipJawsX RAM for my future AMD reviews, in particular, the F3-14900CL9Q-16GBXL kit of which two sticks were used. It is a 16GB (4x4GB) kit which is rated at DDR3-1866MHz with 9-10-9-28 timings on as little as 1.5 volts. It is currently available from Newegg for $149.99.
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system as a whole with a wall meter connected to the power supply, while in an IGP configuration. This method allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard. The power supply used for this test was a generic 250W model from JeanTech.
Out of the A50M motherboards which we have had on test, the ASUS E35M1-M PRO has the lowest average power rating across the four tests which we ran.
CPU Temperatures
With most users running boards on purely default BIOS settings, we are running at default settings for the CPU temperature tests. The results of a CPU Temperature test are not easily interpretable – if a motherboard vendor has buffered the amount of copper in the board between the power delivery and the CPU, this lowers the resistance and increases the CPU default voltage causing higher temperatures (but better stability). However, a high temperature could result from using different types of onboard devices, FETs, or the quality of the CPU temperature sensor, so the overall interpretation is purely speculative. The only thing a CPU test can say for sure is how warm the CPU is.
It could be argued that the CPU temperature is an indication of how well (or how adventurous) the vendor has their BIOS configured on automatic settings. A certain number of vendors not making CPU voltage, turbo voltage or LLC options configurable to the end user, which would directly affect power consumption and CPU temperatures at various usage levels.
The thermal tests were conducted without the included fan, just like the other Fusion motherboards. As you would expect, the temperatures are significantly lower if you use the fan. For example, if you stress the system with OCCT, the temperatures come down from 54 °C to just 39 °C. The fan is whisper quiet during normal operation and should not be noticed in a HTPC environment - however, when the system is stressed and the fan speeds up to 100%, it does get quite loud.
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C300fans - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
1, If DXVA 2.0 works FLAWLESSLY , it works.2, It is good.
spaceyyeti - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
1. Yes, it can. Even 1080p flash (on windows) is kidsplay for fusion.2. Way better then Intel's. I run linux and I get some glitches, but those are really really rare. Under windows there are no problems at all.
C300fans - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
2, If you use cpu to decode high rate files, it will have obivous glitches.spaceyyeti - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
it's not a cpu problem. the ati linux drivers are not that great lately, so uvd3 support is still a bit problematic. but as I said; the glitches are rare. some movies get none, others get 1 or 2 in an hour. they are not annoying or even that noticeable. and yes, I checked my codecs :-) the main problem with the ati drivers nowadays is bad support for gnome-shell/gnome 3. artifacts al over the place. haha. but that's not really relevant to this article.plonk420 - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 - link
it's not high bitrates that have issues, it's retarded settings that go out of Level 4.1 specs, like 16 reference frames @ 1080p.i just wish this was ~20-30% faster and 1/4th the GPU speed. it's just ever so slightly too slow for Spline scaling in ffdshow, IIRC.
Meegulthwarp - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
Nice to see a power supply that reflects what most people would be using with this setup. It would be interesting to have a comparison between this 250w and a 1000w to see if all the haters were correct.Once again, nice review. Currently looking for a HTPC for my new flat. Just worried AMD might release a refresh of Fusion when I buy one. Anyone know if there is a refresh on the horizon?
spaceyyeti - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
The E-450 is coming. Higher CPU and GPU clockspeeds (cpu: 1,65ghz gpu: 508mhz with 600mhz turbo) and a better memory controller supporting 1333mhz. But you can do that with this board too, by just selecting it in the bios.Other than that, you'll probably have to wait for a process shrink.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4407/the-brazos-upda...
Meegulthwarp - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
Thanks, I thought I saw that but couldn't find it. Might just mull it over and give the E-350 a pass for the time being.lestr - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
Ancient history folks. Asus has updated to the 450. Boards have been available in Asia and Europe for weeks now. Slight bump to 1.65 and RAM std upped to 1333, OC 1600. No idea how it would test out - hasn't been done yet. Can't understand why they only have 3 analog audio outs on the rear. BIOS tweaks? who knows.I sent an e-mail to Anand 2 weeks go asking him to get Gary to send one over... Oh well.. we'll see who gets it first. Nice try and a good re-introduction.
silverblue - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
I'm very interested to see if the extra memory bandwidth does anything for the HD 6320 or if it runs out of steam, in which case AMD would've been right to only include a single channel memory interface.