The AMD Fusion Processors Arrive
The MSI E350IA-E45 mini-ITX motherboard is the first system to hit our test bench that integrates the AMD E-350 Fusion APU into a desktop-ready configuration. By combining great performance per watt with features like SATA 6.0 Gb/s and USB 3.0, the MSI motherboard would make a great contender for a new low cost home theater build. Does it stand out at all from the reference platform we saw last year though?
The MSI E350IA-E45 mini-ITX motherboard is the first system to hit our test bench that integrates the AMD E-350 Fusion APU into a desktop-ready configuration. By combining great performance per watt with features like SATA 6.0 Gb/s and USB 3.0, the MSI motherboard would make a great contender for a new low cost home theater build. Does it stand out at all from the reference platform we saw last year though?Introduction
I have been looking forward to retail availability of the AMD Fusion APU based platforms since I first got hands on time with them back at GDC in 2010. Since then I have gone to AMD’s offices once or twice to sit down with marketing, engineers, designers and the hardware itself to really put it to the test and to get AMD’s take on the platform, it’s stance in the market and the company’s goals against Intel.
Last November I was able to actually benchmark and test a reference system at AMD’s Austin campus to get a preview of how the performance of Fusion-enabled notebooks and desktops panned out and the initial results were intriguing.
Also, we did have a short preview of a Toshiba C655D 15.6-in notebook last month with a full review pending using a single-core iteration of the platform. Check that out if you are interested before continuing on with this review below.
The Brazos Platform and its many forms
What we keep referring to as the "Fusion APU platform" is a bit more complex than that. Fusion is the term that AMD once used to refer to the idea of combining CPU and GPU components into a single product and die but they seemed to have moved away from that name in favor of individual product names and brands. The issue is though, the Brazos platform that makes up the motherboards, SFF systems and notebooks we are going to be testing in the near term don’t have a fancy name like Athlon or Opteron. Instead, this is what we have:
- Zacate (18w)
- AMD E-350 with AMD Radeon HD 6310 Graphics
- 1.6 GHz dual-core
- 80 stream processors
- AMD E-240 with HD 6310 Graphics
- 1.5 GHz single-core
- 80 stream processors
- AMD E-350 with AMD Radeon HD 6310 Graphics
- Ontario (9w)
- AMD C-50 with HD 6250 Graphics
- 1.0 GHz dual-core
- 80 stream processors
- AMD C-30 with HD 6250 Graphics
- 1.2 GHz single-core
- 80 stream processors
- AMD C-50 with HD 6250 Graphics
The Brazos platform consists of one of the above processors and the AMD Hudson M1 chipset. Connecting to the processors via UMI, the M1 controller hub includes support for four SATA 6G connections, 8 USB 2.0 ports, 8-channel audio, networking and more. Most of the implementations we have seen thus far integrate USB 3.0 (but through an external chip) and Gigabit Ethernet through Realtek.
All of that translates into a low power computing option that is aimed squarely at the wildly successful Intel Atom line seen in netbooks, small notebooks and SFF systems. Our first official retail review will be of the MSI mini-ITX E350IA-E45 for users that want to build their own home theater or SFF system. Let’s see how the implementations of the Brazos platform actually look like.
can i use an itx case with
can i use an itx case with 150watts psu on this one?
Yes. And I removed the cpu
Yes. And I removed the cpu fan.
I think MSI included one for some liability/warranty reason.
The board never gets hot enough to need a fan.
With a pico psu my system is dead silent.
Don’t expect to game with it. It’s a good Windows Media Server / NAS box.