AMD Fusion Hits Retail: Zotac and Gigabyte E-350s

Test System Configuration Notes: We compared the Zotac ZBox HD AD03 and Gigabyte E350N-USB3 to an array of systems. Because we used a standard 2.5" HD (that was included in the Zotac machine) for this round of E-350 testing, we compared the Zotac and Gigabyte E-350 configurations to a number of mobile platforms that used a similar storage configuration. For the remainder of our testing, however, we compared the Zotac and Gigabyte products' performance to the reference platforms used in our AMD Zacate E-350 Processor Performance Preview. The comparisons will show relative performance versus similar, low-power power platforms and the performance progression AMD has made with the Zacate platform since we first tested the E-350-based engineering platform at AMD's HQ.

HotHardware's Test Systems  Intel and AMD - Head To Head

Preliminary Testing with PCMark Vantage  Synthetic Benchmarks

First up, we ran our test systems through Futuremark’s latest system performance evaluation tool, PCMark Vantage. PCMark Vantage runs through a host of different usage scenarios to simulate different types of workloads including High Definition TV and movie playback and manipulation, gaming, image editing and manipulation, music compression, communications, and productivity.  Most of the tests are multi-threaded as well, so the tests can exploit the additional resources offered by a multi-core CPU.

When compared to a couple of machines based on Intel's Atom processor with NVIDIA's Ion or next-gen Ion GPU and an Athlon Neo, both the Zotac and Gigabyte AMD E-350 based setups performed well, according to PCMark Vantage. The Ion and next-gen Ion GPUs gave the Atom-based machines an edge in the gaming portion of this benchmark, but the E-350 APU-bases configurations came out way ahead in every other test.