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The Gigabyte E350N – USB3 board arrives in a brightly coloured box with specifications and details on the front.
The bundle includes a manual, software disc, sata cables and a backplate.
The board is cleanly designed which follows the reference design, being actively cooled. The E350 APU features a third generation unified video decoder core with Microsoft DX11 capability and supports H.264, Divx and Xvid. Gigabyte have installed a small fan to actively cool the heatsink.
The heatsink is very similar to the Asrock E350M1 board we reviewed a while ago, but the fan is centrally positioned on the Gigabyte version. The board supports DDR3 memory and the CPU's memory controller is officially meant to be limited to 1,066mhz. Gigabyte do offer a 1,333mhz option in the bios which will appease the enthusiast audience.
The back of the board has a high level of connectivity:
1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse port
1 x D-Sub port
1 x DVI-D port
1 x HDMI port
1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
1 x RJ-45 port
6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)
With both DVI and HDMI offered, a wide audience will be supported. USB3 support is also a welcome addition as some of the less expensive Fusion boards do not support this.
Four SATA connectors, each of which offer 6GBps bandwidth. ideal for the latest high performance SSD drives. As we have highlighted in previous reviews, it is worth remembering that the platform will only offer four PCI-E lanes, this is a limitation of the CPU.
I keep meaning to pick one of these up, but I think ill opt for the passively cooled asus model,. seems a better long term option. no fans, always a good thing
Are there any other passively cooled fusion boards out? that asus board is great, but its a small fortune. surely some other company has a passive one out at less money? its hard to even get stock here at all.
IT has to be passive for me if I was getting one, and the only one ive seen is ASUS, who used a massive cooler over the whole PCB basically…….
Im waiting for their quad core designs, these are rather boring, just like a better Atom. good idea, but I need more power,e ven for media system
I like thier motherboards, but passive would have been a better option. I would love to know what the temps would increase to if the fan was disabled inside a decent cooled case? possible ?
Those boards looks nice as a “mom” / grandparents PC…
Hmm putting more of these pages together would help .. also def compare it to an atom/ion system. I do like this for both a Future HTPC and NAS. Just have to get a Freeview HD tuner, and 3 x3.5 hd and a nice case, one that wont revolt my eyes every time I look at it. Do they have full Mythbuntu drivers? resume from s1,s2.s3 properly? If so I’m set.