MSI E350IA-E45 - AMD APU Fusion review

The Brazos Platform

So the low power platform we are looking at today was formerly codenamed "Brazos".

All Brazos motherboards are within the same price range and power envelopes as Atom/Ion solutions. They are available in several APU variations: E-Series and C-Series, which fall within the Fusion family of APUs.

• Liano = AMD A Series APUs
• Zacate = AMD E Series APUs (18W)
• Ontario = AMD C Series APUs (9W)

On the the desktop side within the Zacate and Ontario segment, these are released:

Zacate (18W max):

• AMD E-350 with AMD Radeon HD 6310 Graphics (dual-core CPU @ 1.6GHz & GPU @ 500MHz)
• AMD E-240 with AMD Radeon HD 6310 Graphics (single-core CPU @ 1.5GHz & GPU @ 500MHz)

Ontario (9W max)

• AMD C-50 with AMD Radeon™ HD 6250 Graphics (dual-core CPU @ 1.0GHz & GPU @ 280MHz)
• AMD C-30 with AMD Radeon™ HD 6250 Graphics (single-core CPU @ 1.2GHz & GPU @ 280MHz)

The Processing capability

These APU "processors" feature the new x86 CPU core codenamed "Bobcat" AMD's first new x86 core since 2003 I think. It was designed from the ground up to deliver an enhanced mobile level performance. A processor tagged at a TDP of merely 18 Watts. Have a look below at the APU die.

To the left the Zacate APU - To the right an overlay describing the die segments check out the size needed for the GPU.

The APU we test today has two x86 CPU cores, the chip also supports full X86-64 extensions and sports a 64-bit FPU as well. Each CPU core has 32kb L1 and 512kb L2 cache per core and comes with a single channel memory controller that supports up-to 1066 MHz (but unofficially also 1333 MHz) DDR3 memory. Again note that the specified max memory speed AMD officially supports for “Brazos” is 1066MHz. 

Today we test a product with the E-350, an APU that is empowering the motherboard, it is a dual-core processor SKU running at a clock frequency of 1.6 GHz