ASRock's E350M1: AMD's Brazos Platform Hits The Desktop First

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We had the opportunity to preview the Zacate APU late last year at AMD’s headquarters in Austin, Texas. Now we have the first retail motherboard based on the Brazos platform in ASRock’s E350M1. Today we’re asking: what can the Fusion initiative really do?

Benchmark Results: PCMark Vantage

In most disciplines, AMD’s E-350 trades blows with Intel’s Celeron SU2300. It absolutely decimates the dual-core Atom running at the same clock rate. And not surprisingly, the desktop-class low-power processor delivers the best possible performance.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
81 Comments Comment from the forums
  • iam2thecrowe
    now they need some devs to take advantage of that apu to see its full potential as a processor.
    Reply
  • reprotected
    Ironic of how Nvidia quality is worse than AMD.
    Reply
  • Reynod
    This is an awesome processor ...

    Chris ... did you manage to overclock it at all?

    Give it your best shot ... call crashman in with the liquid nitrogen if you need to mate !!

    Really impressive stats for such a small piece of silicon.
    Reply
  • dogman_1234
    So the Brazo is great for media and hard processing I assume. If someone came to me and asked for a good platrom to watch Blu-Ray...I would say get the Brazo APU for them, right?
    Reply
  • sparky2010
    Nice, things are starting to look good for AMD, and i hope it stays that way as they start unveiling their mainstream and highend processors, because i'm really fed up with intel dictating crazy prices.....
    Reply
  • cangelini
    reynodThis is an awesome processor ... Chris ... did you manage to overclock it at all?Give it your best shot ... call crashman in with the liquid nitrogen if you need to mate !!Really impressive stats for such a small piece of silicon.
    Didn't get a chance to mess with overclocking. If this is something you guys want to see, I might try to push it a little harder over the weekend.
    Reply
  • joytech22
    cangeliniDidn't get a chance to mess with overclocking. If this is something you guys want to see, I might try to push it a little harder over the weekend.
    Yeah that would be much appreciated, these little chips are so much faster than Atom, let's see if you can get them to perform similarly to a Dual-Core CPU at 1.8GHz
    Reply
  • cangelini
    Alright, I'll see what I can do. A shiny new video card landed this afternoon, so that's going to monopolize the bench for much of the weekend ;)
    Reply
  • dEAne
    Yes integration is the key to higher performance, lower power consumption and lower price (affordability this is what people really wanted).
    Reply
  • haplo602
    can you also run gaming benchmarks with a 5670 or similar plugged into the PCIe slot ? Just to have a look how the limited memory interface will bottleneck ...

    also what happens with the intgrated graphics core when you plug in a discreet GPU ? you gave so much detail about this in the sandy bridge review but totaly skip it for Fusion ...

    the board got me interested. I am trying to buy a small "workstation terminal" ... something to code OpenGL/OpenCL on a budget. Seems this is what I am looking for.
    Reply