AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

All about them.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by andyb » Mon Jan 03, 2011 11:03 pm

Details here.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... id=3681#sp

I expect this to be the first of many motherboards supporting AMD's brand new Fusion APU's to be announced. I am looking forward to reading some reviews, as this product has been on many peoples radar for some time, for a selection of reasons, but most obviously for low powered, quiet, and capable media centre PC's and Netbooks.

Most of you will notice the small fan attached to this motherboard and will be concerned (as I am), however we wont know the real implications until it gets reviewed.

http://www.gigabyte.com/press-center/ne ... px?nid=963

It will be on display at CES on thursday (6th of January), you can get a sneak-peek right now with the above links.


Andy
Last edited by andyb on Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

HFat
Posts: 1753
Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:27 am
Location: Switzerland

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX Gigabyte motherboard

Post by HFat » Tue Jan 04, 2011 7:31 am

It looks like that's not the low-power version. Hence the fan. I suppose that's supposed to be an Ion killer (sort of a very low-end gaming board).
The low-power version should be enough for playing videos and such and has about half the TDP. That's the really interesting one I think. I hope it's not going to cost an arm and a leg.

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX Gigabyte motherboard

Post by andyb » Tue Jan 04, 2011 10:21 am

There are basically 2 versions of this APU "Zacate" and "Ontario", this is the faster more capable "Zacate" APU and is 18w, the Ontario is 9w and basically half the performance. There are in reality going to be different versions of these APU's possibly with faster or slower GPU vs CPU, but essentially they will still fall into the 2 currect categories, 9w for ultra portables, tablets and super-phones, and the 18w part for netbooks and low-end laptops.

It is not so much an ION killer, or an Atom killer specifically, what it is is a killer platform, it might not be faster than the Atom, or the ION, in there respective capabilities, it is however cheaper, easier to manufacture, lower power, and has graphics and video acceleration that makes the Atom chiptet look rubbish and is about to be very widespread because it ticks all of the boxes at once. Its not an amazing product, but it is certainly better than anything else out there at that price point with those capabilities, this simply makes it the "sensible choice" over the Atom or Atom+ION.

How good the ultra low power version "Ontario" (9w) will be for home theatre machines needs to be seen, however I doubt that it will be worthwhile when all of the other costs of a machine are counted in very few people will want the slower one to save £10, people will only bother if they really need to save battery power, so I expect that "Ontario" will only be found in portable devices and embedded and manufacturing.

As far as the fan is concerned, it is possile that it is a nice, smooth, slow spinning quiet fan with a broadband noise, MikeC will be able to tell us in the near future. Other manufacturers have "previewed" motherboards that are fanless (a third of the board area is covered in heatsink).

Either way the fan on that board could easily be replaced by something far quieter with a simple mod. I used to cool a standard AM2 heatsink with a 120mm fan hung half an inch above it in my HTPC for about a year, and that was a 65W CPU, so as far as many people are concerned the fan is not a dealbreaker at all.


Andy

HFat
Posts: 1753
Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:27 am
Location: Switzerland

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX Gigabyte motherboard

Post by HFat » Tue Jan 04, 2011 11:47 am

Low-power board are usually more expensive. Low-power Atom boards are more expensive than desktop Atom boards. And the current low-power AMD boards are very expensive. There are boards built with parts designed for the mobile market and people currently pay a premium for them so, if Ontario boards are cheaper than Zacates, I certainly expect people will jump on the opportunity! But you're right: they may not even be available initially.
I suspect none of these boards will be anywhere as cheap as Atom boards which will only make them the sensible choice if the IGP is worth the premium to you. But I'd be glad to be proven wrong of course!
So what are the "boxes" that you say are ticked by these new boards? I see the point of the 8W version because there's not a whole lot of competition at that level of power consumption but for what purpose would the 18W version be meaningfully better than a 2009 N330/Ion board? I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm probably out of touch with their market.

porkchop
Posts: 496
Joined: Thu May 25, 2006 1:19 am
Location: Australia

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX Gigabyte motherboard

Post by porkchop » Tue Jan 04, 2011 2:13 pm

power consumption seems a strong point of the amd platform, as tested by hothardware anyway, i think the performance/watt is quite impressive.

i'm more interested in the llano, it's like a poor mans sandy bridge.

porkchop
Posts: 496
Joined: Thu May 25, 2006 1:19 am
Location: Australia

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX Gigabyte motherboard

Post by porkchop » Wed Jan 05, 2011 4:34 am

preview at bit-tech.

some pics and more info, and some stuff on an asus and msi board :)

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX Gigabyte motherboard

Post by andyb » Wed Jan 05, 2011 10:49 am

Thanks PorkChop, well done BitTech.

That ANUS motherboard looks like the one I saw a few months ago, but it now has WIFI as well.

I am not unhappy with the cost of the Gigabyte motherboard, especially as this is its launch price and it includes USB3 and Gigabit ethernet. £100 for a motherboard and CPU that can out of the box perform as well as or better than an Atom/ION system that can be bought for £90 (link below), but has more sound, video and video card connections, uses less power, and has USB3. That does not look like a bad deal at all, especially as the price will certainly drop, and there will be cheaper boards coming out as well, that dont have USB and all of the features.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/220411

The Atom/ION finally has some worthwhile competition, it looks like a good product.

For £ 350 you could build a complete compact system as a network driven Media Centre PC using the following.

£ 70 Antec ISK100 (case include PSU and 100mm fan that could (probably) mean removing the fan included with the motherboard).

£ 47 2x2GB Branded DDR3 1333MHz RAM

£ 47 Samsung 640GB 2.5" SATA HDD

£ 85 W7 HP 64-bit

£ 100 for the Gigabyte motherboard (includes CPU).

The ODD has been skipped as the case cannot fit one, and who even uses them any more.? W7 can be installed from a USB storage device, if you wanted to have a more traditional build you could also add the following.

-£ 6 Antec ISK 300 (its cheaper and has the space for a slimline ODD).

+£ 20 for a SATA DVD drive, or +£ 100 for a SATA Blu-Ray drive

Ignoring the horrible price of a Blu-Ray drive, you could build a system with a DVD drive for just £ 365, yhat is still pretty cheap, especially as some of you will automatically ignore the £ 85 cost of W7 and do your own thing instead. Making the system costs either £ 265, or £ 280 depending on setup, you could easily reduce the cost further buy using a cheaper HDD, Case, or less RAM, potentially you could make a system for as little as £ 177, but it would be a bit pants, even then that is an incredible pricetag considering that it would shame a £500 machine from just a few years ago.


Andy

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX Gigabyte motherboard

Post by andyb » Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:16 am

I just read this nice review of the Antec ISK 100 case, it looks good, and can fit 2x 2.5" HDD's (although there is little cooling for them, so dont over do it).

The 100mm fan on low seems perfectly capable of cooling an Atom/ION system, so simply removing the fan from the Gigabyte motherboard should not be a problem at all, additionally it would be the only fan in the system as it comes with a DC/DC adaptor and a 90W power brick, so this system could end up being exceptionally quiet as well, or for those with thought of total silence, an SSD and a fanless motherboard (like the Anus one) would probably be OK if you dont use the stand and lay it down flat as the case is very open, you could simply remove the 100mm fan and with very little work and not a great deal of expence you could have a passive system that is not slow - at last.

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3751/a ... index.html


Andy

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX Gigabyte motherboard

Post by andyb » Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:28 am

Hell, I have even thought of a few nice ideas.

Put a couple of high performance SSD's in the system, and you have an ultra portable file-server that could be put into a fireproof safe at night, or even taken home. Or it could be hidden, and used as a digital video recorder for security purposes. The more I think about this kind of setup, the possibilities keep on growing, forget taking a USB drive to a friends house to watch a few films, you could just take this, and hook it up to their TV, that means that they dont even need a HTPC, only a modern TV.

I want one, even though I dont need one :D


Andy

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX Gigabyte motherboard

Post by andyb » Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:51 am

From Zotac, a pre-built HTPC including a Blu-Ray drive, and a sleek design.

http://hothardware.com/News/Zotac-Revea ... -E350-APU/

No price yet, and no-idea if the warranty is voided if it get opened (although this should only be a problem if it is sold as a "consumer unit" and not as a PC, which will be rather hard to do).

Interesting stuff, and as I expected Fusion is about to be everywhere very soon.


Andy

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX Gigabyte motherboard

Post by andyb » Sun Jan 30, 2011 5:44 pm

The first review that I have seen is in the link below. You will notice that its an MSI ITX motherboard, and it has been heavily tested. It looks like an ideal choice for a netbook, or a HTPC.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4134/the- ... -miniitx/1


Andy

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by andyb » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:22 am

This is the motherboard that many around here will appreciate.

Fanless, and low power. Its the ASUS E35M1-I reviewed at "expert Reviews". Anandtech will also be taking a look at this motherboard in the near future.

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/motherbo ... us-e35m1-i


Andy

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by andyb » Fri Feb 11, 2011 2:27 am

OK, so this motherboard is NOT an ITX board, but it will still be of interest to many people.

Bullet Points.

Includes (soldered to the motherboard), Dual-Core AMD Zacate E-350 1.6GHz APU, including Radeon HD 6310 graphics.
PASSIVE MOTHERBOARD that as it includes the CPU and GPU makes life easy for someone to build a passive/very quiet system.
Low Power, the APU (thats CPU + GPU) is 18W MAX + the north/southbridge 5W MAX
mATX
Uses satndard desktop DDR-3 1066 DIMM's
Has 2x PCI slots (ideal for TV Tuners)
Has 2x PCI-E slots, 1 is 1x speed, the other is 4x speed but can physically accept up to 16x cards of any type, e.g. for TV Tuners.
Gigabit ethernet
Firewire
E-SATA
5x internal SATA
USB 3 (new high performance interface backwardly compatable with USB 2, but not USB 1)
£108 inc VAT, and now in stock, this will of course drop in price as it will carry the additional cost of it being new, and there seems to be few sellers out there so competition has not erroded the price either.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-e35 ... d-graphics


Andy

faugusztin
Posts: 450
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2010 2:47 am
Location: Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by faugusztin » Fri Feb 11, 2011 2:37 am

My biggest issue with these boards is exactly the PCI-E x4 slot. Right now i have a Atom board with ION and full PCI-E x16 slot. I have a PCI-E x8 card in it ( http://www.intel.com/products/server/ra ... erview.htm to be exact). Now the question is if it would work in x4 or not :D.

Edit: Answer is yes : http://www.intel.com/support/motherboar ... 029898.htm

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by andyb » Sun Feb 13, 2011 10:15 am

As you have already answered your own question all I can add is my a few notes.

PCI-E was designed to work with any card that can physically fit in the slot, i.e. a 16x slot can work with any card that will fit (16x, 8x, 4x, and 1x).

Likewise some motherboards have slots that are physically smaller than 16x and are "open ended", and so long as there are not any motherboard components that get in the way, a 16x card can go into a 1x slot, and it WILL work.

PCI-E was designed to work in "lanes" hence the ability to use more/less lanes for more/less overall bandwidth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

My home server has a 4x PCI-E RAID card in a 16x slot and works perfectly.

Back on-topic. Several reviews have tested this platform with faster graphics cards and they have all come to the conclusion that overall the system does not get a worthwhile performance boost for either "Computer Games" or "video playback" due to the limitation of the CPU performance more than the PCI-E bandwidth restrictions.


Andy

nutball
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1304
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2003 7:16 am
Location: en.gb.uk

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by nutball » Mon Feb 14, 2011 3:19 am

The Gigabyte board is showing up for pre-order from Scan now for £110

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigabyte ... hd6310-vga

ces
Posts: 3395
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2010 6:06 pm
Location: US

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by ces » Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:36 am

The most important element of energy usage, in terms of actual cost, if you leave the computer running 24/7, is energy usage at idle. If you turn it on and off as you use it, then the most important element of energy usage is energy usage at typical load.

The AMD Fusion on an Asus E35M1-M Pro Motherboard uses
a total of 18 watts at idle, and
a total of 28 watts under an average load (H.264 playback)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1167-page5.html

On the other hand

The Intel Core i5-2500K running on an Intel DP67BG motherboard uses
a total of 16 watts at idle, and
a total of 23 watts under an average load (H.264 playback)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1148-page5.html

The motherboard/CPU cost differential between the AMD Fusion and an Intel Core i5-2400 is approximately $100 in the United States

For approximately $60 more SPCR suggests that Intel's CULV dual core Celeron SU2300 running on a Zotac IONITX-P-E is a better bargain than the Fusion.

Though for an additional $40 on top of that (a total of $100), why not an Intel Core i5-2400 running on an Intel DP67BG motherboard. It costs a little more but it delivers better performance and GET THIS: you actually save money on reduced electrical usage. It's Green and More Powerful! Under idle it uses less electricity and under typical usage is uses even less electricity compared to Fusion or Atom.

Unless you are running Linux, an Intel Core i5-2400 will probably remain a usable platform over a longer lifespan (through more generations of Windows) than will an Atom or Fusion computer. For $100 more you get a computer that not only uses less electricity, but will have a longer useful life span.

In about a month when the 4 core i5-2400 is supplemented by 2 core Sandy Bridge CPUs, the cost/performance disparity will become even greater. They will cost even less, burn even less electricity and still handily outperform the Atom or the Fusion... and not by a little.
Last edited by ces on Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

HFat
Posts: 1753
Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:27 am
Location: Switzerland

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by HFat » Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:45 am

One value is AC and the other DC. They can't be compared directly. The Zacate board was used with a much more powerful PSU than it needs, no doubt resulting in substantial PSU losses.
I'm pretty sure this has already been explained to you in response to your endless touting of the Sandy-Bridge platform.

You previsouly compared the cost of a board which includes a PSU to one which doesn't and now you compare the cost of a CPU to the cost of a board which includes a CPU. This is getting tiring.

ces
Posts: 3395
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2010 6:06 pm
Location: US

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by ces » Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:55 am

HFat wrote:One value is AC and the other DC. They can't be compared directly. The Zacate board was used with a much more powerful PSU than it needs, no doubt resulting in substantial PSU losses.
???????????? Oh, you mean like the same Pico-PSU that would drive the 4 core 2400 (or the 2 core version of the 2400) running on the Intel board? Yes, I can see exactly why you would have no doubt. :)

ces
Posts: 3395
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2010 6:06 pm
Location: US

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by ces » Mon Feb 14, 2011 7:19 am

HFat wrote:You previsouly compared the cost of a board which includes a PSU to one which doesn't and now you compare the cost of a CPU to the cost of a board which includes a CPU.
The $140 Asus E35M1-M Pro tested by SPCR doesn't appear to come with a PSU. See:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1167-page1.html

According to Google Shopping the Intel Desktop Board DH67BL costs $99.99 on Amazon.com
I buy my CPUs at Microcenter.com. They are currently charging $149 for the 4 core Intel 2400. I am expecting them to charge under $70 for the 2 core version.

That works out to a price differential of between $30 to $100 give or take... for a motherboard/cpu combination that delivers more performance with less electricity and a longer projected useful life.

HFat
Posts: 1753
Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:27 am
Location: Switzerland

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by HFat » Mon Feb 14, 2011 7:28 am

Please head to the Wikipedia and look up AC and DC (not the rock band).

ces
Posts: 3395
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2010 6:06 pm
Location: US

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by ces » Mon Feb 14, 2011 8:27 am

HFat wrote:Please head to the Wikipedia and look up AC and DC (not the rock band).
That is a well taken point. If you are relying on battery power, there may be some advantage to the Fusion or Atom in the event of a runaway process.

goatsandmonkeys
Posts: 91
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 6:32 am
Location: new york

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by goatsandmonkeys » Mon Feb 14, 2011 11:00 am

ces wrote:In about a month when the 4 core i5-2400 is supplemented by 2 core Sandy Bridge CPUs, the cost/performance disparity will become even greater. They will cost even less, burn even less electricity and still handily outperform the Atom or the Fusion... and not by a little.
I could not agree more. Intel hasn't confirmed that sandybridge boards will accept the smaller die ivy bridge chips, but I think these set ups hold even more value to silent builders if we can upgrade down the line to a faster, lower power chip.

dhanson865
Posts: 2198
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2005 11:20 am
Location: TN, USA

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by dhanson865 » Mon Feb 14, 2011 11:06 am

ces wrote:
HFat wrote:Please head to the Wikipedia and look up AC and DC (not the rock band).
That is a well taken point. If you are relying on battery power, there may be some advantage to the Fusion or Atom in the event of a runaway process.
No batteries involved, what he means is that there is an inefficiency converting from AD to DC (all computer parts run on DC power) and that has to be taken into account to compare numbers.

The information needed to do a rough conversion is located on http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1167-page4.html where it says "The following power efficiency figures were obtained for the Seasonic SS-400ET used in our test system"

But considering it says that, did Lawrence not do the conversion or did he do the math and mislabel the chart?

Until Lawrence or Mike can confirm which it is, the AC/DC math and the comparison between the two articles aren't worth doing.

HFat
Posts: 1753
Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:27 am
Location: Switzerland

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by HFat » Mon Feb 14, 2011 12:39 pm

I think we can make a pretty good bet. Compare the figures to the D510MO review. System idle consumption was 18W and 24W at CPU load with the stock PSU of a Morex case. And the power consumption of the D510MO is 18W/24W again in the new review. I don't know if they used a PSU that just happened to have the same efficiency or if they recycled the old numbers (it wouldn't be a very fair comparison in that case) but the D510MO numbers are clearly AC numbers. So I have to assume all the numbers in the new review are indeed AC numbers.

ces
Posts: 3395
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2010 6:06 pm
Location: US

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by ces » Mon Feb 14, 2011 2:40 pm

dhanson865 wrote:No batteries involved, what he means is that there is an inefficiency converting from AD to DC (all computer parts run on DC power) and that has to be taken into account to compare numbers.
OK, I got it. Seems like there would be basically two scenarios

The AMD Fusion on an Asus E35M1-M Pro Motherboard uses
a total of 18 watts at idle, and
a total of 28 watts under an average load (H.264 playback)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1167-page5.html

vs

The Intel Core i5-2500K running on an Intel DP67BG motherboard uses
a total of 16 watts at idle, and
a total of 23 watts under an average load (H.264 playback)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1148-page5.html

and then

The AMD Fusion on an Asus E35M1-M Pro Motherboard uses
a total of 18 watts at idle, and
a total of 28 watts under an average load (H.264 playback)

vs

The Intel Core i3-2120 (65 watt TDP) or the SandyBridge Pentium G850 (65 watts TDP) or Sandy Bridge Pentium G620T (35 watts TDP)
less than the 2500K's 16 watts at idle, and
less than the 2500K's 23 watts under an average load (H.264 playback)

===================

Under most instances all these chips are going to be using about the same power, give or take a few watts. But with all the Sandy Bridge chips, other than the smallest ones, you have to over provision them with extra PSU capacity.... just in case.... because they have a higher top end.

The AMD Fusion you could maybe be comfortable with a 60 watt Pico-PSU (though I think the 90 watt one would be a better choice)

With the 2400, even though you wouldn't ever need the extra power in normal use, you would still want to provision it with probably the 120 watt Pico-PSU (though I think the 150 watt one would be a better choice)

With the Sandy Bridge Pentium G620T you could provision it with 60 the watt Pico-PSU same as the Fusion (though as with the Fusion, I personally think the 90 watt one would be a better choice).

So worst case scenario is how less efficient at 16 watts of DC output is a 150 watt Pico-PSU than a 60 watt Pico-PSU.

If at 16 watts it is 60% efficiency (150 watt Pico-PSU) vs. 80% efficiency (60 watt Pico-PSU) we are talking about 3 watts difference (0.20 x 16 watts), but the 2500K (with its bulked up Video), already needs 2 watts less electricity than the Fusion. To me that seems like a wash. And as you move to the 2400, then to the 2120, then to the G850 and finally to the G620T, the total energy usage numbers (including taking into account differences in PSU efficiencies) can only become more and more favorable to the Sandy Bridge.

===================

On the other hand let's say you use the Seasonic SS-400ET for both, like some people might do. At 16 watts its efficiency will be equally poor for the fusion or the Sandy Bridge whether it is 66% efficient or 56% efficient.

===================

I think we are talking about approximately the same energy utilization (including taking into account differences in PSU efficiencies) when comparing the Fusion with the much more muscular 2500K.

And the Fusion likely starts to fall behind the energy cost curve as we successively compare it with the 2400, then to the 2120, then to the G850 and finally to the G620T. We won't know the performance envelopes of the 2120, G850 or G620T for certain another month, maybe more. But if even the modest G620T isn't at least 2-4x more powerful than the Fusion I think a lot of people would be surprised. Wouldn't you?

Doug, what do you think?

Have I overlooked anything else? If I have, it wouldn't be the first time. But I just don't think that I have.

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by andyb » Mon Feb 14, 2011 3:14 pm

Here is an updated price list of one I calculated on the 5th of January, however this time, its from Scan, as they list, but dont yet have in stock the Gigabyte GA-E350N-USB3.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigabyte ... -m-itx-vga

For £ 340 you could build a complete compact ITX system as a network driven Media Centre PC using the following (or for many other purposes).

£ 65 Antec ISK100 (case include PSU and 100mm fan that could (probably) mean removing the fan included with the motherboard).

£ 35 1x 4GB Branded DDR3 1333MHz RAM (its a single-channel system, so you could easily upgrade it to 8GB if you really wanted to)

£ 46 Samsung 640GB 2.5" SATA HDD

£ 75 W7 HP 64-bit

£ 111 for the Gigabyte GA-E350N-USB3 motherboard (includes CPU).

The ODD has been skipped as the case cannot fit one, and who even uses them any more.? W7 can be installed from a USB storage device, if you wanted to have a more traditional build refer further up the page to my previous post.

also note, that this could easily be a single fan system, as the 100mm fan in the case would blow straight over the heatsink, simply remove the fan that comes with the board as it would not be needed, the PSU is of course fanless, as it is an external power brick (and a little bit of voltage conversion hardware inside the case).

Who would have thought a few years ago that a system like this could be built for this small amount of money, and could be very quiet without having to mess around a lot - its pretty incredible when you really think about it.


Andy

dhanson865
Posts: 2198
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2005 11:20 am
Location: TN, USA

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by dhanson865 » Mon Feb 14, 2011 3:44 pm

ces wrote:
dhanson865 wrote:No batteries involved, what he means is that there is an inefficiency converting from AD to DC (all computer parts run on DC power) and that has to be taken into account to compare numbers.
The AMD Fusion on an Asus E35M1-M Pro Motherboard uses
a total of 18 watts AC at idle, and
a total of 28 watts AC under an average load (H.264 playback)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1167-page5.html

vs

The Intel Core i5-2500K running on an Intel DP67BG motherboard uses
a total of 16 watts DC at idle, and
a total of 23 watts DC under an average load (H.264 playback)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1148-page5.html
No, you can't compare those two numbers like that. You either have to convert the Intel DC back to AC or you have to convert the AMD AC to DC.

HFat says we can rely on the AMD numbers being truly AC, so to convert to DC we can take a range between 66% and 72% efficiency per the reviews use of a Seasonic SS-400ET power supply (totally unrelated to any technology used by Intel or AMD, it just happens to be what SPCR used for that particular review).

18 watts AC x 66% = ~12W DC
18 watts AC x 72% = ~13W DC

28 watts AC x 66% = ~18W DC
28 watts AC x 72% = ~20W DC

so The AMD E-350 on an Asus E35M1-M Pro Motherboard uses
a total of 18 watts AC at idle, and
a total of 28 watts AC under load (H.264 playback)

and we assume by doing math that translates to something like

a total of ~12W watts DC at idle, and
a total of ~19W watts DC under load (H.264 playback)

versus

The Intel Core i5-2500K running on an Intel DP67BG motherboard uses
a total of 16 watts DC at idle, and
a total of 23 watts DC under an average load (H.264 playback)

Or we could convert the other way and figure out how much higher the Intel used using math like

16 watts DC / 66% = ~24W AC
16 watts DC / 72% = ~22W AC

28 watts DC / 66% = ~42W AC
28 watts DC / 72% = ~39W AC

and get to something like
a total of ~23W watts AC at idle, and
a total of ~40W watts AC under load (H.264 playback)


It'd be clearer if the articles with conversion to estimated DC usage had the raw data somewhere in an appendix, footnote, or sidebar of some kind. It'd be clearer if all the articles had the same conversion.

I'm not really sure what you are trying to say with all that TDP talk and the rest of the post below that.

You seem to be missing the concept of translating from AC power consumption to DC power consumption.

AC power comes from the wall to the power supply. The power supply converts it from AC to DC and sends it out to the parts inside the PC. How efficient this process is varies from Power Supply to Power Supply and from low wattages to high wattages.

If I tell you that my PC draws 72 Watts at idle and say nothing else your first question should be how did I measure that and you should expect an answer that says with a Kill-a-watt meter (or similar wall plug device) which measures AC or by probes at certain contact points inside the PC which gives a number in DC (but is hard to do and requires measuring every possible sub-component at the same time if you want total system consumption). When I answer Kill-a-watt (AC) you should have a follow up question of what power supply am I using. So you can do figure out if I'm drawing 72 watts because I have an inefficient PSU or if the rest of the system is power hungry (or a combination of both).

In a shorter version if I tell you 72 Watts at idle you should come back with the question "AC or DC?". And I'd say AC (because nobody measures total system consumption in DC).

As far as I'm concerned we'd be having this conversation if there was only one power supply on the entire planet and it wouldn't matter if it were a 650W Seasonic or a 1200W OCZ or a 20,000W Taipai Electric (OK, I made the last one up). This isn't about how to choose a Power Supply this is about how to convert from one type of measurement to another.

Maybe the table at http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page4.html would make it clearer to you the relationship between AC power and DC power in a PC?

I hope that clears it up for you. I honestly don't know where the Fusion E series compares vs what Intel part. I have to stop and read all the articles to catch up. I have faith in the power of capitilism to adjust the price of both parts to reflect their advantages/disadvantages.

But tonight being Valentines my girlfriend will expect me to spend some time off the PC so I won't be trying to predict the market right now.
Last edited by dhanson865 on Mon Feb 14, 2011 5:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

dhanson865
Posts: 2198
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2005 11:20 am
Location: TN, USA

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by dhanson865 » Mon Feb 14, 2011 4:55 pm

Oh and one more correction before I go grab some milk (before my GF gets home from work)

You said

The Intel Core i5-2500K running on an Intel DP67BG motherboard uses
a total of 16 watts DC at idle, and
a total of 23 watts DC under load (H.264 playback)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1148-page5.html

But that is the power draw for the DH67BL + Intel Core i5-2500K not the Intel DP67BG which instead uses

a total of 28 watts DC at idle, and
a total of 33 watts DC under load (H.264 playback)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1148-page5.html

Which is even higher power draw (though I don't pay much attention to Intel motherboards so I don't off the top of my head know the difference between the Intel DP67BG and Intel DH67BL other than one uses more power than the other).

I'm assuming you just wanted to compare versus the lowest power draw motherboard + Intel Core i5-2500K and just didn't write the correct motherboard in.

ces
Posts: 3395
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2010 6:06 pm
Location: US

Re: AMD Fusion E350 Mini-ITX motherboards

Post by ces » Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:30 pm

dhanson865 wrote:But that is the power draw for the DH67BL + Intel Core i5-2500K not the Intel DP67BG which instead uses
a total of 28 watts DC at idle, and
a total of 33 watts DC under load (H.264 playback)
The Intel DP67BG uses the P67 chip set.
http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/m ... erview.htm

It needs a separate video card and is unable to make use of the integrated graphics silicon in the SB. It just can't compete with the power efficiency of the H67 chipset used by the DH67BL nor was it ever intended to do so.

Post Reply