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AMD’s latest Brazos Platform has proven popular over recent months, with many users adopting a secondary low powered system for general, light duties or as the foundation of a high definition media center. Today we are looking at the Gigabyte E350N...
A well balanced board with high levels of connectivity, Rock solid, Modest gaming performance with lower IQ settings at 720p, E350 processor is much stronger than current ATOM designs, runs cool, power consumption is minimal...
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We were initially disappointed with AMD's new Fusion CPU, the E-350. Despite that, its low-power CPU-GPU chip, otherwise known as Zacate, does have something to offer in certain small form factor and portable computing niches. Enter, therefore, the new...
Strong feature set, Compact proportions...
Poor CPU performance, Pretty pricey...
We were initially disappointed with AMD's new Fusion CPU, the E-350. Despite that, its low-power CPU-GPU chip, otherwise known as Zacate, does have something to offer in certain small form factor and portable computing niches. Enter, therefore, the new...
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In the last year or two, there has been a strong increase in demand for media PCs and components. Up until recently, a powerful media PC consisted of a desktop processor, micro-ATX motherboard, and a low-end graphics card. The problem with this setup...
Fast for its power consumption and size, Capable of 1080p video, Decent 3D performance, Low power consumption, Wellpriced, Good BIOS features, CPU and RAM overclocking, PCIExpress x16 Slot, Fullsize DDR3 DIMM...
No WiFi, No Bluetooth, No eSATA, No RAID support, Only six USB ports on I/O Panel...
Four years in the making, the first desktop iteration of AMD Fusion has proven to be quite the platform. Having reviewed and personally used other low-power media PC platforms, I approached AMD Fusion with skepticism. Previous platforms of this nature...
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Gigabyte's GA-E350N-USB3 is the first production motherboard we've seen to sport AMD's Fusion platform (in this case, the low-power Brazos version), which is a tempting prospect for manufacturers of cramped mini-ITX boards, with CPU and GPU combined on a...
A niche product, but AMD's Fusion and a solid feature set make for an impressive board at a decent price...
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All i heard last year was that 2011 was going to be the year of the tablet, and whilst i can semi-agree with that, i don't believe it's as clear cut as that. I think 2011 is the year of small products, not just tablets, but smaller form factor gadgets and...
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At Hardware.Info we keep wondering why so many ATX motherboards are still being sold. So much functionality has been integrated on modern motherboards, that the only reason you still need a motherboard that large is if you plan on using three or four gr...
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Gigabyte even addresses the legacy monitor and speaker markets with a VGA connector and six audio jacks. We’d have preferred anything else to the VGA connection. eSATA would have worked...
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So we're looking at a whole new swathe of AMD processors for desktops, notebooks and netbooks (not to mention nettops, tablets, all-in-ones etc), but the one that's really tickling our creative fancy at the moment are these E-Series 350 boards. With mo...
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I'm going to be honest here when I say that I wasn't on the Fusion bandwagon from the start. I liked the idea behind it, but I wasn't sure if we would actually ever see it eventuate, or at least eventuate to a product that we would want to own. F...
For me, one benchmark was most important, and that was playback of a 1080P MKV. Firing up an 8GB copy of Ironman running off both the hard drive and over the network, playback was excellent and smooth. The only time I saw the playback really struggl...
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At Hardware.Info we keep wondering why so many ATX motherboards are still being sold. So much functionality has been integrated on modern motherboards, that the only reason you still need a motherboard that large is if you plan on using three or four gr...
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AMD's Fusion technology has worked out well for the company in 2011 and many vendors have reaped the benefits by including this platform in their mini ITX motherboards and netbook offerings. Gigabyte found room in their product line to feature this...
We'd like to thank our friends at Gigabyte for providing the GA-E350-USB3 for our review today. I had high expectations for this E-350 motherboard, but the benchmark results didn't give me what I was looking for from this board. The next Fusion APUs wi...
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When it comes to putting together a small functional PC for your parents or an HTPC for your living room there is a lot more to take into account than normal. In these situations noise, power usage, video performance, and cost also need to be considere...
and FVDon’t let the test results fool you, even at 1/3 of the performance of its big brother the A8. The E350N-USB3 is still more than capable of playing HD content and that’s what it’s truly made to do. The Mini ITX form factor, all in one design, an...
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As you know, Mini-ITX motherboards are niche solutions required mostly when space is limited. Their second and third most important aspects are power efficiency and noise level. For your money you can have all three, but Mini-ITX boards usually don't...
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After being in development since 2006, AMD was finally able to debut their Fusion APU at the 2011 CES. If you haven’t been keeping up with processing technology as of late, APU stands for Accelerated Processing Unit and is AMD’s CPU + GPU combo chip. O...
Gigabyte's GA-E350N-USB3 is a nice AMD alternative to Intel's Atom / ION combination that worked as-advertised here today.In our real-world analysis, the E350N performed nicely as a HTPC. It was able to process 1080p video from YouTube smoothly with...
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Its odd how long it took for AMD's Fusion APUs to be sent for review. They have been available to OEMs for a few months now, making Fusion products available since this past January. The motherboard giants made the DIY community wait; MSI, GIGABYTE, AS...
Gigabyte's hardware implementation of AMD's first Fusion chipset in the form of the E350N-USB3 is somewhat disappointing, as there are many critical features missing, and there is not much done to add more value to the platform. Of course, there are so...
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Home theater systems and such have become a widespread phenomena. As technology becomes more and more affordable and even the low end systems have the juice to keep up with HD and Blu-Ray playback, there has never been a better time to buy one of suc...
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Now I have reviewed a couple of Micro/Mini-ATX motherboards over the past couple of months, but nothing says discrete like Gigabyte’s 6.7″ x 6.7″ GA-E350N motherboard. Based on the recently released AMD Brazos chip, the GA-E350N comes with an obvious A...
Small size, Quiet operations, Smooth HD playback...
Expected more than two USB 3.0 ports given the name, E350 processor provides netbook level performance...
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Have you ever thought bigger is better? In many cases, it is. This time, little may bring big with Fusion technology. Gigabyte has coupled a new motherboard with the newest release by AMD. This release is not your typical expectation; rather something...
The E350 is a very unusual introduction from AMD. Many would have thought the initial release for FUSION would not have been a low end chip. Typically both AMD and Intel release a flagship CPU upon introduction, but in this case, AMD looks to be walkin...
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Gigabyte E350N-USB3 AMD Brazos Mainboard Review IntroBluetooth 8 Mar 2011 AMD has been busy with developing the APU for some years. With Intel releasing it’s latest H67 processors with embedded graphics, AMD’s game plan is to tackle it’s competitor f...
we feel that this little guy will be a good choice if you intend to build SFF Boxes for your home entertainment or for simple desktop work. Although it is capable of DX11 game play, you would have noticed that the lower resolution we used to test th...
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Today we are checking out the Gigabyte E350N-USB3 which is based on the new AMD Fusion platform. AMD Fusion is the marketing name for a series of APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) that have been in development since 2006. The final design is the resu...
First let’s talk a little bit about the AMD Fusion platform. When discussing this platform it is important to keep in mind that, like the Atom platform, the Brazos architecture is designed to be low powered and cost effective. Although it will serve ni...
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In the excitement associated with having the best processor or motherboard we sometimes forget that our systems have gotten a little overpowered for the average every day user. That's not to say we can't use 6 processor cores or can benefit from an in...
MiniITX Form Factor, Onboard 6000 Series Video, Low Power, 4 SATA, Single PCI Express expansion, Can Be Overclocked...
CPU is holding system back, 120Mhz Limit to Overclocking...
There are two parts in concluding this review. First we must consider AMD Fusion since that is the main reason for creating this product and second how do we rate Gigabyte in their solution to the E-350 problem. In a word, Bravo.Clearly the E-350 is...
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Netbooks have made their mark on the computer industry. Many people doubted that computers with such little power and capability would be useful. Little did they know, there is a giant market of casual, light computing users out there. Look at how well...
Near AllInOne Solution, Tiny Form Factor, Low Power...
None, HiTech Legion Gold Award...
The Brazos platform has to be taken for what it's worth. This isn't some super powerhouse system to meet enthusiast needs. Rather, this is something aimed at a more casual market. This is positioned for the web browsers, video watchers, email checkers...
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You know, it's nice when you catch a break or two, more so when you're considered very much the underdog. Chip company AMD caught a break when Intel announced that its stellar Sandy Bridge platform was compromised by a manufacturing issue that really...
Gigabyte has taken the encouraging step of using AMD's newest technology and brought it to bear on the desktop. The Brazos platform encompasses a low-power CPU and DX11-capable integrated graphics on one chip, brought together under the firm's Fusion A...
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When AMD bought ATI in 2006 many smart people started to talk about the possibility of a new type of chip combining the processor with the graphics chip. Fast forward to 2011: that speculation has become reality with the advent of the APU (Accelerated...
Performs very well for this type of system, Suitable for entry-level/casual gaming, Both USB3 and SATA 6 Gb/s, PCI-E-slot, Quiet fan, Low power consumption, Plays 1080p video wihtout any problems, HD-audio bitstream support, Flash Player 10.2 brings GPU-rendering...
Heatsink needs a fan unless case has good ventilation...
So was the AMD Fusion APU worth waiting for? As a replacement for the Intel Atom/ION platform, the E-350 APU certainly works well, though we did expect the CPU part to perform a bit better than just 20% faster than the aging Atom N330. In some ways th...
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With all the yapping about Intel's Sandy Bridge over the last few months, it's great to actually write something about AMD for a change. We remember discussing the future of Fusion with AMD in 2007, and back then it all seemed very promising. This j...
General performance for the E-350 APU is pretty average. While the image editing test yielded the same pitiful result again and again, performance is behind or equal to that of the VIA Nano Dual core overall, although even the now defunct Intel Core 2...
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AMD’s new platform for the low-power computing segment, the Fusion was announced at CES this year and products based on the new Brazos platform are already coming out. We’ve received two solutions, one from MSI called the E350IA-E345 and the Gigabyte G...
The new Fusion APU is an improvement over previous low-power processors but the platform itself comes across as a much more feature-rich product. Features such as SATA 3 and USB 3 are not common on low-power, somewhat affordable boards. The PCIe x4 slo...
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Gigabyte’s E350N-USB3 is also interesting. This board is available for about $149 at some popular on-line retailers. For under $150, the E350N-USB3 offers a low-power CPU, SFF motherboard with USB 3.0 support, and a DX11 graphics core. Add a case, some memory, and storage, and you’ve got yourself a complete system that can serve a variety of needs. Couple the b...
All things considered, in light of some other competing low-power platforms, the Zotac ZBox Blu-Ray AD03 Plus and Gigabyte E350N-USB3 performed very well. In terms of CPU and overall system performance, the AMD E-350 APU-based Zotac and Gigabyte conf...
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Very recently we managed to place our grubby hands on the Asus E35M1-M PRO motherboard; one of the first of many to include the new AMD Fusion "Zacate" 18W Dual Core processor. As you can see, our overall verdict about the platform itself was fairly s...
On the basis that the E350N-USB3 is built on the exact same platform as the Asus E35M1-M PRO we tested two weeks ago, it comes to no surprise that from a performance perspective there is very little to show. As you could have guessed, they perform nea...
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Even though they cost more, we are inclined to go with the Gigabyte and MSI, just for the sake of ensuring that our systems are mostly future-proof (USB 3.0) and importantly, will last long enough to see the mass adoption of USB 3.0. Their marginally better performanc...
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Better late than never, eh AMD?I've been waiting to get a hold of a media sample so that I can say this: Ladies and gentlemen, here comes the 18W E-Series APU, codenamed “Zacate”.Gigabyte sends me a board with AMD E-350 APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) w...
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Four and a half years have passed since AMD acquired ATI and announced its Fusion plans for world domination. That's how long it's taken for the first accelerated processing unit (APU) to emerge. Make that two APUs: Ontario and Zacate. The former is a 9W...
If you've been following along since page one, you'll already know the answers to the questions we posed at the start of this review. For everyone who skipped over my eloquent prose, carefully constructed charts, and pretty graphs, I'll recap. The Hudson...
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The focus of today's review is the miniITX, 17cm square, Gigabyte GA-E350N-USB3 AMD Fusion motherboard. This platform is based on a dual-core netbook processor from AMD called the AMD Fusion E-350 'Zacate' APU. The processor includes an entry level Radeon...
PCSTATS measures total system power draw (watts) with the aid of an Extech 380803 AC Power Analyzer and A-PFC compliant Seasonic SS-760KM power supply. The meter is placed between the 120V AC outlet and the PC power supply and the computer stressed. Total...
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AMD’s Brazos platform, driven by the Zacate APU, offers a lot of performance per watt. It comes up short on features, though. Eight manufacturers...
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