Asus E35M1-I Deluxe Fusion Mobo & Thermaltake Armor A30 Review

1. Introduction2. Asus E35M1-I Deluxe3. Thermaltake Armor A30 System build4. The Bios and Hardware Overview5. Testing Methodology6. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra7. Synthetic: PCMark Vantage8. Synthetic: Aida 649. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit10. Synethic: 3DMark Vantage11. Real World: BluRay Playback with Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 Ultra12. Real World: Flash HD Performance13. Real World: Media Encoding with Cyberlink Media Espresso14. Real World: File Copying with Kingston HyperX Max 3.015. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark 2.016. Gaming: Left4Dead 2 (integrated)17. Technical: Acoustics Performance18. Technical: Thermal Dynamics19. Technical: Power Consumption20. Closing Thoughts21. View All Pages

KitGuru has looked at several new Fusion boards from AMD partners MSI and Sapphire. Both products left us with positive feelings –  the mixture of low power drain, competitive pricing and excellent high definition media performance is certainly a heady combination. Today we are building a more expensive media system based around the Asus E35M1-I Deluxe motherboard and stylish Thermaltake Armor A30 chassis.

AMD Fusion is the marketing name for a series of Accelerated Processing Units that have been in development since 2006. This design combines general processor execution with 3D geometry processing and other functions of modern GPU’s into a single chip.

The passively cooled Asus motherboard features the new dual core AMD E350 CPU with AMD Radeon HD6310 graphics. It offers HDMI, DVI output with wireless, Bluetooth, Sata 6GB/s and USB 3.0 connectivity.

This is our first in a two part review of the Asus E35M1-I Deluxe. Next time we will be focusing on gaming performance with some discrete solutions. All our testing today on the Asus E25M1-I Deluxe will be at at our maximum overclocked figures.

CPU	AMD CPU on Board ;Integrated dual-core AMD® Zacate™ 18W Processors
Chipset	AMD Hudson M1
Memory	2 x DIMM, Max. 8 GB, DDR3 1066/800 Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory * Please refer to www.asus.com or user manual for Memory QVL. * When installing total memory of 4GB capacity or more, Windows 32-bit operation system may only recognize less than 3GB. Hence, a total installed memory of less than 3GB is recommended.
Expansion Slots	1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (at x4 mode, with latch)
VGA	Integrated AMD® Zacate™ Graphics Supports DVI with max. resolution up to 1920×1200@60Hz Supports HDMI with max. resolution up to 1920×1080@60Hz Supports D-sub with max. resolution up to 2560×1600@60Hz
Storage	Southbridge 5 xSATA 6.0 Gb/s ports 1 xExternal SATA 6Gb/s
LAN	Realtek® 8111E PCIe Gigabit LAN controller
Audio	ALC892 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC Supports DTS Surround Sensation Ultra-PC * Use a chassis with HD audio module in the front panel to support an 8-channel audio output.
USB	NEC Controller: – 4 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 ports at mid-board, 2 ports at back panel) Chipset built-in: – 8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 ports at mid-board, 4 ports at back panel)
ASUS Unique Features	ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 AI Suite II TurboKey II Mem OK! Q-FAN Anti-surge DTS Surround Sensation UltraPC ASUS@Vibe Support
Back Panel I/O Ports	1 x PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse Combo port 1 x DVI 1 x HDMI 1 x External SATA 6Gb/s 1 x LAN(RJ45) port(s) 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 1 x S/PDIF Out (optical) 1 x Bluetooth 3.0 adapter 2 x Wifi antenna ports 3 x Audio jacks
Internal I/O Connectors	1 x USB 3.0/2.0 connector(s) support additional 2 USB 3.0 ports 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 connector(s) support additional 4 USB 2.0 ports 1 x MemOK! switch 5 x SATA 6.0Gb/s connectors 1 x CPU Fan connector(s) 1 x Chassis Fan connector(s) 1 x Chassis Intrusion connector 1 x S/PDIF Out connector 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V Power connector 1 x 24-pin EATX Power connector 1 x Front panel audio connector 1 x System Panel connector 1 x Turbo Key II switch
BIOS	32 Mb Flash ROM , AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI 2.0, WfM 2.0, ACPI 2.0a, SM BIOS 2.6
Accessories	User's manual 1 x I/O Shield 2 x SATA 6.0Gb/s cables 2 x Wifi antennas 1 x Support DVD
Support Disc	Drivers Anti-virus software (OEM version) ASUS Update ASUS Utilities
Form Factor	Mini ITX Form Factor 6.7 inch x 6.7 inch ( 17 cm x 17 cm )

The Asus E35M1-I Deluxe motherboard arrives in a chunky blue box with details of the specifications on all sides.

Inside we have literature, a software disc, back plate, 2 sata cables and 2 wireless antenna.

This board differs when compared to the other Fusion products we have reviewed so far. Asus have removed the small cooling fan and have instead created a monster heatsink, which is actually that substantial it is passively cooled.

While Sapphire opted for SO-DIMMS on their Fusion board, Asus have went for full size slots, meaning you can use any desktop based DDR3 directly in the board. It also requires a single 4 pin power connector, right behind one of the heatsinks. In an overclocked state we managed to push the DDR3 memory to 1600mhz, which is well in excess of listed AMD specifications.

There are five SATA 3 connectors, all of which are 6GB/s capable.

Next to the main power connector is the front panel connector. The Asus motherboard has a discrete PCI-E x 16 graphics slot but it only delivers x4 bandwidth. Not a failing of this particular board, but a universal AMD design decision.

The motherboard has several fan headers tucked in behind the right hand section of the heatsink.

To give an idea of the diminutive size of the board, we have fitted 4GB of Corsair Dominator DDR3 above, with the additional cooling fan. This can be used in the case, but unfortunately it does block the discrete slot.

Connectivity is very strong on this ASUS board. We have several USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, DVI out, and an older PS2 connector. There is also a hybrid eSATA/USB 2.0 connector and a lan 10/100/1000 port for networking connectivity. Additionally there is a bluetooth transmitter and wireless header. There are also audio out connectors with optical S/PDIF.

In our last Fusion review we used the Element Q case from Thermaltake, which has been on the market now for quite some time. For our review today we were kindly supplied the latest and greatest media case from Thermaltake – the Armor A30.

The bundle is comprehensive. A well written multi language manual, speaker, mounting screws for all areas of the case and a handful of cable tidies in two sizes.

The Armor A30 is significantly larger than the Element Q, but it offers substantially more with the updated design. Firstly, the design looks a lot better with angular edges and an almost industrial ‘sci-fi' like appearance. There is a large 230mm fan at the top of the case, a 90mm intake fan at the front  and two 60mm exhaust fans at the rear. Both 230mm and 90mm fans have subtle blue LED's to enhance the appearance.

The front of the case has a USB 2.0 port, USB 3.0 port, eSATA connector and headphone and microphone input connectors. The Tt badge is placed centrally in the middle of the central bezel.

Both side panels have plastic windows mounted to give an overview of the internals. These panels incidentally are never removed, the top and rear sections slide out and off for internal access.

Dotted around the circumference of the chassis are thumbscrews which all need to be removed so various parts of the chassis can be opened.

The rear tray slides out easily, and both 60mm fans can be seen from the inside. They both require a molex power connector. Thermaltake haven't cut corners here, we can see these are high quality units which only spin at 1,500 rpm and only emit around 18dBa of noise.

The top panel is slid backwards to expose the whopping 230mm fan, which is again a high quality unit spinning at only 800 rpm and emitting only 15dBa of noise. The front 90mm fan is also a low spinning model to keep the noise levels as low as possible.

With the rear motherboard tray removed and the top fan shroud out of the way, we can see the insides much clearer. Next we need to get access to the optical/hard drive area at the front of the chassis.

Two more thumbscrews need to be removed and then the optical drive section can be slid back and upwards, outside the case. It is a very clever system and the engineering quality is impressive. Additionally, standard ATX power supplies can be used with this case (one isn't supplied).

With the top tray removed we can mount two hard drives in the tray below. We have fitted a 2TB Samsung unit for storage in the image above. This tray is held in place by a single screw. Again, we were impressed with the chassis strength and engineering quality, much better than the Armor A60 we looked at last year.

The system build took about 10 minutes in total and was easily one of the better small form factor case builds we have experienced to date.

The Asus bios is fully featured and is significantly better than other Fusion board we have tested. Also, the mouse can be used for navigation.

This board is also more receptive to overclocking that the other Fusion boards we have tested. We managed to hit a wall at 1.9ghz (from 1.6ghz) which equates to almost a 20% overclock. Stability was improved by increasing the core voltage on the CPU by 0.1.

CPUz and GPUz are due to get updates shortly to correctly read some of the hardware aspects of this platform.

The newest Catalyst Control Center offers a wide range of settings – especially those for a demanding video enthusiast. We are really looking forward to testing similar Fusion hardware running within the mobile space.

The Asus software disc contains all the chipset, GPU, Bluetooth, Audio and connectivity drivers needed, with a special focus on Norton Internet Security 2011.

In our overclocked state, the Windows Performance Index rates the system at 4.1, limited by the processor. A surprisingly good set of results however.

To test the Fusion platform today, we are using a wide selection of real world and synthetic tests, clearly labelled. If you are only interested in video quality and hardware performance we advise you to shift forward in the review to the real world and image quality sections.

We also felt it would be interesting to compare some of our findings against the Intel Atom platform, in the shape of the 1.8GHz D525 processor. We have also included results from a previous generation AMD Turion 64 X2 L510 clocked at 1.6ghz.

As we have tested the reference clocked E350 before, today we are showing performance gains in our maximum overclocked state (1.88ghz).

Asus E35M1-I Deluxe system build:
CPU/GPU: AMD Zacate APU – E350 (HD6310 graphics) @ 1.88ghz
Motherboard: Asus E35M1-I Deluxe Motherboard
Chassis: Thermaltake Armor A30
Memory: Corsair Dominator DDR3 (4GB)
Hard Drive: Samsung 3.5 inch 2TB
Power Supply: Thermaltake 550W Unit (will be used for discrete graphics solutions in part 2).

Supplemental Hardware:
Solid State: Kingston Hyper Max 3.0 x 2
Optical: Asus USB 2.0 BluRay Drive
Monitors: Sharp 50 inch 1080p Aquos LCD TV, LaCie 730 (IQ testing) and Dell U2410

Comparison processors:
Atom D525 @ 1.8ghz
Turion X64 X2 L510 @ 1.6ghz

Software:
Windows 7 64 Bit
Aida 64
SiSoft Sandra
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
Cyberlink Media Espresso
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra V10
3Dmark Vantage
HQV Benchmark V 2.0
Left4Dead
Resident Evil 5

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Keithley Integra unit
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Kill A Watt Meter

All results are gained from multiple test runs to ensure any abnormalities are removed before publication.

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

Great results from the Asus board with the APU running at 1.88ghz.

PCMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows Vista offering one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts.

A PCMark score is a measure of your computer’s performance across a variety of common tasks such as viewing and editing photos, video, music and other media, gaming, communications, productivity and security.

From desktops and laptops to workstations and gaming rigs, by comparing your PCMark Vantage score with other similar systems you can find the hardware and software bottlenecks that stop you getting more from your PC.

Strong results from the Asus system, placing it as the highest performance Fusion build yet.

AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. AIDA64 Extreme Edition provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. AIDA64 is compatible with all current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

The overclock helps the ASUS board dominate these tests with clear performance increases in all areas.

CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.

The additional 300mhz helps boost Cinema 4D rendering performance from 0.60 to 0.70. Not a huge increase on the grand scale of things, but it cut the rendering time by around 20 seconds.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7.  This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. We are using the Entry preset.

A slight increase in the overall score, thanks to the overclocked speeds. It still won't be ideal as a hardcore gaming system, however considering the low power demands it is impressive.

Our good friends at Cyberlink kindly supplied the software for our BluRay and conversion tests.

Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 is one of the finest solutions for the BluRay experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the new Extended Bluray Disc of Avatar, one of our favourite sci-fi films in recent years.

The Asus E35M1-I system drops the CPU demand by one percent, when compared to the reference clocked Sapphire system. Its not noticeable at all under real world conditions, but it shows a slight benefit from cranking the clocks.

Great results from the Asus system, with CPU demand moving between 7 percent and 26 percent. Plenty of time in reserve for multi tasking if needed.

Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online.

Both systems are easily capable of handling high definition Flash content with plenty of processing time available for multitasking.

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 3.3GB 720p MKV file (2h:12mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We are focusing on the CPU efficiency with this test.

The overclocked Zacate processor reduces the conversion time by a whopping 6 minutes when compared against the reference chip.

We are now going to test the USB 3.0 and 2.0 speed, so we used two of the fastest drives we have, the Kingston HyperX Max 3.0 128GB, which is an Toshiba based SSD product within a USB 3.0 capable enclosure.

We copied a 3.9GB MKV file to and from the Kingston HyperX USB 3.0 drives… bypassing the slower, internal mechanical drive.

Great results, and equal in performance to the Sapphire Pure Fusion board we reviewed several weeks ago.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evaluate motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on BluRay. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content, so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

Read our initial analysis over here.

	Asus E35M1-I Deluxe
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	5
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	3
Roller Coaster	3
Ferris Wheel	3
Bridge Traffic	3
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	3
Roller Coaster	3
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	2
Ferris Wheel	3
Skin Tones	7
Total	179

This Fusion system delivers high quality video that’s a measurable 60% better than the scores we got with Intel’s HD video engine when we tested it, back in June last year.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter game. It is the sequel to Valve Corporation’s award-winning Left 4 Dead.

Like the original, Left 4 Dead 2 is set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic pandemic, and focuses on four survivors fighting against hordes of the infected. The survivors must fight their way through levels, interspersed with safe houses that act as checkpoints, with the goal of reaching a rescue vehicle at the campaign’s finale. The gameplay is procedurally altered by an artificial intelligence engine dubbed the “Director” that monitors the players’ performance and adjust the scenario to provide a dynamic challenge. Several new features have been introduced: new types of infected, melee weapons, and a story-arc that connects the game’s five campaigns together.

We are tesing at 720p with settings on high. 2AA is enabled.

At these settings the game runs well and indicates that casual lower resolution gaming is a possibility. We will be following this article up in the coming weeks with a full look at gaming performance on this system combined with discrete solutions.

We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground with our Extech digital sound level meter to mirror a real world situation.

The Asus E35M1-I is completely silent, so this will be a rating of the Thermaltake Armor A60 chassis.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet take off/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

The Thermaltake Armor A60 is a very quiet chassis design, barely audible, even in a quiet room. The two smaller rear fans could be disconnected which lowers the emitted noise a little, but in all honesty we would leave them all connected for improved thermal performance. Excellent results.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.

Load measurements were acquired by running Furmark and Cinebench together. We included results from a diode which we placed beside the motherboard and the exhaust fans.

This giant Asus cooler delivers some fantastic results and could easily cope with increased voltage, if the motherboard could be pushed further. This is clearly superior to the other Fusion cooling solutions we have tested so far, which have all been based on the reference AMD design.

To test power consumption today we are using a Kill A Watt power meter. We loaded the system with some games and measured results at both full load and idle.

The efficiency of the Asus motherboard is fantastic, only demanding 30 watts at idle and 42 watts under load. This could be left on 24/7 without risk of causing an issue with your electricity bill. As in the previous reviews, you don't need a high output power supply, but we used this unit for the second part of our article which will feature discrete graphics solutions.

KitGuru isn't a  Fusion Platform virgin, we know the baseline to expect from our previous reviews. The Asus E35M1-I Deluxe takes this baseline and kicks it into touch. From the moment we opened the box we knew we had something very special in our hands.

The Asus E35M1-I Deluxe has the best bios of any of these boards, offering not only mouse support and dedicated fan controls, but an advanced section with a plethora of overclocking options to ensure you get the most from the capable Zacate E350. We even scaled DDR3 memory to 1600mhz, well above AMD's official platform specifications.

We managed to achieve a 20% overclock with AMD's low power workhorse and this translated into real world, noticeable gains in all our testing when compared against the reference speeds. Video encoding times were reduced by 6 minutes and even Cinema4D received a little performance related kick in the pants.

The Atom D525 doesn't even come close to the Zacate E350 with a 200mhz clock advantage, and when clocks are equal the differences are even more apparent. Simply put, the AMD E350 Fusion system outperforms Atom by up to 20% – despite the fact that it's clocked 200MHz slower.

The Asus custom cooling solution is absolutely brilliant, using such a large heatsink means that the little cooling fan can be removed for a completely silent media experience. Even when overclocked the Asus E35M1-I ran cooler than the reference AMD board at default speeds.

Lets not forget the Armor A30 chassis. It made a perfect partner for the Asus E35 M1-I motherboard, helping to ensure that the heatsink received a fair amount of airflow. The case generates very little noise and has a fantastic cooling methodology. A single 90mm fan pulls in cool air from the front, over the hard drives, and is forced out the back, with ambient, rising heat being sucked out of the top of the chassis. It is a classic cooling methodology that has been proven to work over the years and with Thermaltake's excellent choice of quality fans, it can easily run 24/7 with only a whisper.

If you are in the market for a low cost high definition media centre, then this Asus and Thermaltake partnership would be our first choice. In the follow up to this article we are going to see if this system is capable of being used as a secondary gaming build, hooked up to a big television. Even though our previous reviews of Fusion technology have used lesser power supplies, our choice of 550W PSU means we can easily slot in a performance graphics card. Is it worth spending extra on a discrete graphics card? If so, which one?

KitGuru says: You do pay a premium for this Asus E35M1-I Deluxe motherboard, but in our opinion it is worth every penny. The Thermaltake Armor A30 is very well put together and offers great cooling proficiency while generating very little noise. Both products earn our highest award.

Cost of Asus/Thermaltake Media system:

• Asus E35M1-I Deluxe motherboard = £140
• Thermaltake Armor A30 case = £77 (Yoyotech)
• Corsair Dominator memory = £70 (Yoyotech)
• Samsung 2TB Hard Drive = £70 (Yoyotech)
• Thermaltake 550w = £50 (Yoyotech)

Total: £407 inc vat.

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Asus E35M1-I Deluxe Fusion Mainboard

AMD ‘Zacate' Fusion APU with Integrated Radeon HD6310 graphics

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