Obviously I must have missed something. I have to admit I was assuming the testing methodologies were the same in the two sets of tests (Fusion and SB). I will have come come back and dig into your posting to figure out the details of what you are saying.

The Zactate test system used (according to page 4 of the review) "a picoPSU-120 120W DC-to-DC converter with 60W AC adapter".

What should they have used (honest question)?

You are right. I understand the concept, I just didn't notice the change in methodology between the two tests.

That may represent a 40% difference depending on the efficiency of the power supply being used to convert AC to to DC. We are probably talking about a 60% correction factor. 16 watts becomes 26 watts (compared to the Fusion's 18 watts). That is a big difference.

At a dollar per watt per year... applying a 60% correction fact... just estimating it in my head... the difference is maybe 10 watts. So that is about $10 of electricity per year. Probably the 2 core SB won't help that much either... it appears that the chip itself isn't using much of the wattage, but it is the board... and no matter how little wattage the smaller chips sip, they will not be 10 watts better than the 4 cores (the 4 core 2500K idles at about 4 watts, you can't go below 0 watts).

No free ride after all. An inexpensive ride... but not free.

I estimate $100 extra for the 2400 CPU/motherboard upgrade plus $10 per year for higher power requirements. Still compelling in my opinion, but compelling to a narrower audience than I was proposing.

Doug, do you have any other corrections to my above readjusted estimates?

Where can I find energy comparisons of H67 and P67? The only P67 reviews I have seen have used power hungry GPUs

It is not possible to compare the H67 and P67.

You can compare the H67 with a P67 coupled with a video card... but the comparison will be dominated by the video card... so you will really be comparing the H67 integrated graphics with the graphics of the video card.

So it is sort of metaphysically impossible to compare the H67 and P67. Does that make sense to you?

E350 ITX motherboards are currently selling in the UK for £120+ which is obviously way over the top, and probably due to a lack of stock and choice at this stage.

However OCUK list the MSI board for £100, OCUK usually list items well before they have stock, however the point here is that this is proof that these motherboards will be priced sensibly in the near future.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... ubcat=1949


Andy

I am testing Asrock E350M1 . Got it for 350zł (about 87 euro , $120) . It feels better than atom in overall "snappines". Much colder than Ion and feels faster.But IMO that is only board worth consideration, any other board is not an option.For me this sort of computing power is not worth more than 100$ .
Paying more than that is nonsense : for example similar board : Gigabyte E350 costs 525zł (130 euro $180) . That's too much .Even if it has USB 3.0 . Passive Asus will be even more than that. We getting close to H67 Board and cheapest SB which I would prefer any given day.

Also Got my results(FSP PicoPSU 65W and FSP065RAB 19v brick, board itself 1Gb ram and 2,5 5400rpm drive):

IDLE 15W
3dmark11 - 22W
LinX(100% CPU - 0%GPU)=22-24W
Furmark + LinX = 26-30W

I may try it with PicoPSU 160XT and MPL GS90 80W power supply which I consider as a one of the best in terms of efficiency(rated as a industrial = read more expensive). Just to make measurements more accurate.

nice numbers! a match for the msi board

good for me because that's the board i'm looking to get, price and the lack of aux12v power has sold me on it. i like the solid caps version, but that has usb3 which will probably drive up the cost.

Ya, I also think Fusion E350 ITX boards are way too expensive for the time being. It costs an arm and a leg to purchase Gigabyte, MSI Fusion E350 board in my country. I AM waiting for a low-end, budget Fusion E350 board to tinker with.

And tramall, your 15W IDLE is just amazing!!! Look forward to more E350 power figures!!!

tramall: have you enabled cnq and c6 mode for the cpu in the bios? might shave off a couple watts in idle if you haven't, c6 is disabled by default.

c6 mode was indeed off , but it made no difference when idle.

But :

I changed psu to PicoPSU 160XT and connected it to the FSP GS60A12-P1J 60W brick and results are:

Idle : 11-12W
3Dmark11: 18W-20W
LinX: 21W
Fumark alone: 22W
Fumark+ LinX: 26-27W

cnq and c6 mode enabled.

Just to remind , that is for Asrock Em350I + 1GB RAM and 2,5 Scorpio BLUE (WD1600BEVT)

Only bad thing about board so far: FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need to send the board off for custom backplate measurements , but when I get it back I will play with it bit more. (got few other psu and various bricks from 50W to 150W )

even better!

after reading many pico-psu reviews, i can tell you that psu combination is more efficient because the 12v line is straight from the power brick, converting 19v to 12v probably led to some inefficiency in the other combo (though from reviews passing the 12v line through the pico results in more stable and clean power, probably doesn't matter for such light loads). good news for me since i'm looking to use a picopsu-80, though my brick won't be as nice as your fsp.

i would consider the thermalright hr-05 chipset cooler for the e350 chip, it should work well, maybe even passively.

Very good idle power consumption there!

How bad is the ASRock stock fan (compared with the Scorprio's idle noise for instance)?
And how good is the heastink (that is, what are the temps with and without the fan?).

Pico 80W is tailored for this board. Even lack of p4 cable is a good news.

Fan itself is as good as any other cheap 40mm fan . Heatsink is the smallest one among brazos boards. Good thing is that mounting holes are probably standard , and it is possible to find nice after market ones.

Temps are quite high (55-65) even using open bench case.

Foxconn is about to release passively cooled brazos board , and it should be priced at the same level as Asrock.

The passive ASUS board is on NewEgg now. $175 + ship.

Thanks for providing the mini review tramall. Ive just purchased the MSI E350IA-E45 and looking at your figures Im hoping the Fortron Mini Laptop Adapter 40W brick should be enough to power it (in conjunction with a Pico 80w) - 87%+ effciency for 20 euros.

As long as it doesnt burn down the house, at that price it can be considered expandable:).

Have you had chance to try the IO perfromance with an SSD?

I seem to remember that I saw the performance with the Crucial SSD that is capable of SATA 3, and it was as good a performer as standard desktop machines with a modern SATA 3 controller.


Andy

I do not have SSD , but I try to borrow OCZ Vertex from my friend when I get the chance.

the hudson chip that handles the sata ports is a cut down version of the standard amd southbridge, i would expect performance to be the same. a test is the most certain way to check though.

so my atom netbook died yesterday
today i borrowed my bros laptop, it has an i5 and boy is it snappier! i may buy an e350 based netbook later when they're available, i hope the browser and os experience is just as fast- any experience anyone?

I have an X120e with E-350 on the way, I'm excited.

Reviews suggest performance is very respectable. It obviously won't bench as well as mid-range or high-end CPUs, but reviews make it sound like it feels as fast as more powerful CPUs for web browsing and basic stuff like that, it's not like lower end Atoms where there's a noticeable slowdown. So it should be a pretty nice upgrade over a single-core Atom netbook. If you had a more expensive Atom netbook (dual core + ION or something like that) it probably won't be much/any faster, but should offer better battery life.

No USB 3 but much cheaper than any other E-350 board I have found so far.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=E350M1

£ 85 after VAT

http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop ... productTop

The next cheapest I found is in the following link, and I suspect is actually the same motherboard, although it does have a different part number listed and has been in stock for a week.

http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop ... ID=B591786

Either way this board is at a sensible price, and makes this a truly worthwhile HTPC option on a budget.


Andy

Better still a company that I have never dealth with but have seen on my travels around the interweb called Ginger 6 has the above mentioned Asrock motherboard in-stock and at a cheaper price of £ 78.90 inc VAT.

http://www.ginger6.com/asrock-e350-e350 ... 36159.html


Andy

Yeah I came across that a few days ago too. I've used Ginger6 in the dim and distant past, they were OK. So anyway my discovery has finally led to my curiosity getting the better of me (I want to know how well these boards will run Boxee) and my resistance buckling. Hopefully the board will arrive today or tomorrow so I can scratch that little itch

I was sorely tempted by the fanless Asus board, but that's damned near twice the price of the Asrock - and out-of-stock across the whole of Europe as far as I can tell - so not really the best choice for an itch-scratch purchase.