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Gigabyte serves up AMD Fusion in a mini-ITX motherboard

by Parm Mann on 4 January 2011, 12:46

Tags: Gigabyte (TPE:2376)

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We've seen Gigabyte Fusion boards knocking about in recent months, but if you've been eyeing up the HTPC potential of the new AMD platform , you'll be pleased to hear that the Taiwanese manufacturer has used CES to get all official on us.

The board announced today is the GA-E350N-USB3, and it's a mini-ITX solution designed with one purpose in mind; low power, small-form-factor, hi-def home entertainment.

Measuring 17cm x 17cm, the miniature board is based on the AMD Hudson chipset and comes armed with a newly-launched AMD Fusion E-350 APU. Said chip provides two processor cores clocked at 1.6GHz and an integrated DX11-capable Radeon HD 6310 GPU that packs 80 stream processors running at 500MHz. All whilst keeping within an 18W TDP.

That's the start of what appears to be a spiffin' low-power HTPC, and Gigabyte's rounding off the feature set with a pair of DDR3 DIMM slots capable of supporting up to 8GB of RAM, a PCIe x16 slot (that sadly runs at x4 due to chipset limitations), four SATA 6Gbps connectors, USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet and 7.1-channel high-def audio.

Gigabyte's Ultra Durable Classic 3 design promises the use of high-quality components, and the rear I/O provides a healthy set of connectivity options. There's no eSATA, but the combination of USB 3.0, HDMI, DVI, VGA and optical audio isn't going to leave many users feeling short changed.

There's no mention of price or availability as yet, and we've no idea how loud the "specially designed low profile fansink" is during real-world use, but we're certainly eager to find out.


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HEXUS Forums :: 18 Comments

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That would also make a very nice custom NAS box :)
or even a slimline htpc.
I hope it is under Ā£100.
Chuck in a HD5570 it might even make a half decent lan box… anyone know if it does hybrid crossfire? ;)
scaryjim
Chuck in a HD5570 it might even make a half decent lan box… anyone know if it does hybrid crossfire? ;)

Perhaps AMD Llano would be a better choice especially if the APU has 320 to 400 shaders.