GIGABYTE GA-E350N-USB3 (rev. 1.0) Pro Reviews

First the bad, then the good. Like the Intel Atom, AMD's Fusion E-350 APU is anaemic and underpowered compared to entry level desktop processors. It does have a better IGP performance than the Intel Atom and it does support DX11, but where 3D gaming is concerned these are really token attributes. To put it one way, a weather balloon does not an airship make... The AMD E-350 APU is not a total loss however, far from it in fact. The little chip is sufficiently capable of filling in the role of a lightly used desktop replacement computer; a couple orders of magnitude above a Netbook when paired with desktop memory and HDD/SSD. The Gigabyte GA-E350N-USB3 is capable of modest computing tasks like email, Word, internet, media streaming, music, Media PC and HTPC applications. It's even upgradable with a full PCI Express x16 videocard, but keep in mind the CPU is soldered in place and will always be the limiting factor as PCSTATS extensive benchmarks have demonstrated. If you need an inexpensive desktop PC platform for the office, this is not it. This AMD A75-based board is a much better option.

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 will provide better CPU performance as well as graphics and multimedia capabilities to help boost this platform into something consumers will drool over for their next home theater PC. While this board gives users adequate performance for Blu-ray playback and very low-end gaming, the GA-E350-USB3 really didn't shine during testing and we would have to recommend that our readers wait for the next APU revisions from AMD.

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 the E-350 seems to have the same issue as the Atom/ION combo: an imbalance between the power of the CPU and the GPU. In fact, considering that the HD6310 GPU is even faster than the ION GPU, the imbalance feels even more pronounced. Anyone expecting to use the E-series of APU for gaming will be disappointed since the CPU part bottlenecks the performance. It does work for casual games and older games, but anything modern is simply unplayable.

Gigabyte has given this AMD Zacate-based board some impressive desktop features including PEG16 graphics, USB 3.0 and a full-featured BIOS that even provides several overclocking options. Impressively, Gigabyte has crammed all that into a Mini-ITX form that suits the lower-power processor perfectly. There's only so much you can do with a weak-performing processor. The AMD E-350 fusion chip simply doesn't have the chops to deliver a satisfactory all round computing experience. In that context, high end features such as overclocking support and discrete graphics are effectively redundant.

Given that competitive landscape, I'm a little hesitant to recommend the E350N at present. The addition of decent fan speed controls to the board's BIOS would make this a much better platform for quiet desktops and home-theater PCs. Zacate is an excellent choice for those kinds of systems. Adding a stack of tweaking options to the BIOS isn't going to turn it into a compelling overclocking platform, though.TR

Gigabyte has taken a cutting-edge mobile AMD platform and shoehorned it into a full-featured mini-ITX motherboard in eminently sensible fashion. If you understand that it's not designed to replace the desktop PC, rather it's there to augment it, then the board provides a very solid base on which to build a low-power, quiet, and reasonably capable PC.

The Gigabyte and MSI boards also come with more features, from USB 3.0 to their own proprietary ones, and generally have a more expensive feel to them (read solid capacitors). 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 performance also tilts the advantage in their favor, though those who have an urge to tweak may find the Gigabyte the better of the two, thanks to options that allow some sort of overclocking for the APU's clock and graphics core.

Overall, the Gigabyte E350N was a very positive experience. The amount of performance squeezed out of such a small form-factor, lower-power system is truly astounding. Despite missing a couple key connections, such as WiFi, the board still had countless other great features. Being able to overclock and have something to show for it really made me feel like I had a quality performance product. This board was purposely designed to be at the core of a media PC and it truly shows in its performance, power consumption and feature-set. The Gigabyte E350N-USB3, with the AMD Fusion chipset at its core, genuinely allows you to have the best of all worlds in a media PC.

A niche product, but AMD's Fusion and a solid feature set make for an impressive board at a decent price

GIGABYTE has done a fantastic job with this board here. Connectivity options are great, there are expansion possibilities with the x16 PCI-E slot and AMD have done the right thing in regards to pricing. On top of all those little features that make the "Fusion" platform so appealing, GIGABYTE has of course added all their little aspects which make the board so appealing for the right market. Plus you throw in the fact that Overclocking is mentioned on the back of the box and you've got to love what's going on here. GIGABYTE has done its part, but it's now up to AMD to make people outside of the tech enthusiast want one. Having a great product is one thing; selling a great product is another.