Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 350 Review (featuring ThermalTake Element Q)

1. Introduction2. Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 3503. System build with the Thermaltake Element Q Chassis4. The Bios and Hardware Overview5. Testing Methodology6. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra7. Synthetic: PCMark Vantage8. Synthetic: Aida 649. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit10. Synthetic: 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 V2.016. Gaming: Left4Dead 2 720p (integrated)17. Gaming: Resident Evil 5 (Discrete HD6850)18. Technical: Acoustics Performance19. Technical: Thermal Dynamics20. Technical: Power Consumption21. Closing Thoughts22. View All Pages

AMD's Fusion platform was released in January and a few weeks ago KitGuru spent some time with a ‘yet to be released' MSI Fusion System Prototype – we were actually the first in the world to review it.

For the last week we have been spending some time with the upcoming Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 350 motherboard, and today we share our findings, having built a low cost system around it.

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 Sapphire board features the dual core AMD E350 CPU with AMD Radeon HD6310 graphics. It delivers HDMI, DVI and VGA output with BlueTooth, USB 3.0 and SATA 6Bb/s support.

Today we are building a system inside a low cost media chassis, kindly supplied by Thermaltake – the compact and rather attractive Element Q.

The Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 350 arrives in a shiny branded box with a list of the features on the front.

The bundle includes a software and driver disc, motherboard manual, two sata cables and a motherboard backplate.

The Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 350 motherboard is a mini ITX design with a clean, compact PCB layout.

The E350 APU features a third generation unified video decoder core with Microsoft DX11 capability and supports H.264, Divx and Xvid. Sapphire have installed a small fan to actively cool the heatink.

This particular board is unusual in that it requires the use of DDR3 SO-DIMM's – more often used in laptops. It can support 800mhz and 1066mhz memory with a maximum of 4GB (2+2GB).

The Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 350 motherboard has a discrete PCI-E x 16 graphics slot but it only delivers x4 bandwidth. There is also a Mini PCI-E slot next to the PCIE slot.

The board supports a total of 5 SATA 3 devices with 6GB/s and AHCI.

The motherboard has a digital readout onboard to help with diagnosing potential issues.

It requires power via a 4 pin ATX power connector.

From left: Four USB 2.0 ports, BlueTooth, eSATA port, 10/100/1000 Lan Port, two USB 3.0 ports, a VGA and DVI-D port. Next to these is a HDMI port and audio out with optical S/PDIF at the far right.

As this Sapphire Pure Fusion board will be retailing in the UK for around £80-£90 inc vat, we wanted to keep the cost of our system build down as low as possible.

Thermaltake create one of the nicest, low cost media chassis on the market, the Element Q. This can be picked up for around £50 inc vat and includes a small power supply ideal for powering the Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 350 motherboard.

The Element Q is a very attractive design – very simple, with an orange accent at the front. There are plenty of air vents on the side panels to help with airflow. To keep noise to a minimum there are no fans in the case, and we won't need any with the cool running AMD design.

Four screws hold the chassis in place, and when removed it slides backwards. Thermaltake save space by bundling the extras inside the chassis. There are mounting screws, rubber feet, drive holders and a speaker.

The first step in the system build is to remove the power supply completely. This ensures more working space for the motherboard installation.

This motherboard requires DDR3 SO-DIMMs, which are slightly more expensive than ordinary desktop based DDR3 sticks.  Above, we are using 4GB of Samsung 1066mhz memory which costs around £50 online. Check ebay for up to the minute low price deals. It can also support cheaper, slower 800mhz memory, but we strongly recommend you spend a little extra.

The motherboard is installed by simply using four of the supplied screws in the bundle. The case supports both 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch drives, for this particular build we are using a cheap 2.5 inch 250GB hard drive.

Once the motherboard and hard drive are fitted and all the cabling is sorted, the power supply can be returned to place. The case can also house an optical drive, although we prefer to use an external ASUS bluray unit.

The system build, which took literally 10 minutes to complete.

The finished system build. Very sexy.

The bios is a fairly basic Americian Megatrends configuration. Below are a variety of screenshots.

System Validation is available over here

CPUz and GPUz are due to get updates shortly to correctly read some of the hardware aspects of this platform (The processor is dual core). We can however see the 40nm Zacate APU has been detected with the correct clock speed highlighted (1.6ghz). This product is Direct X 11 capable.

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.

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.

Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 350 system build:
CPU/GPU: AMD Zacate APU – E350 (HD6310 graphics)
Motherboard: Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 350
Chassis: Thermaltake Element Q
Memory: Samsung 4GB DDR3 SO-DIMMs (2x2GB) @ 1066mhz
Hard Drive: Samsung 2.5 inch 250GB

Supplemental Hardware:
Solid State: Kingston Hyper Max 3.0 x 2
Optical: Asus USB 2.0 BluRay Drive
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD6850 (via the 4x PCIe Slot)
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

The single channel memory on the Sapphire Pure Fusion suffers a little in the last test when compared to the other platforms however the Arithmetic test is strong for the new AMD APU. The Atom D525 is top with the Multimedia benchmark test.

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.

A good score, especially when factoring in the low power ‘all in one' solution, delivering a final score of 2745 points.

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.

A balanced set of results and what we would expect from a low power solution.

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 faster dual channel memory on the L510 system is helping improve performance levels. The Atom D525 trails in last place.

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 score of 3439 certainly shows that this system won’t be ideal as a hardcore gaming system, however it is respectable, considering the low power demands.

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 Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 350 system is capable of delivering a 4% lower CPU overhead with our BluRay testing. Not that noticeable under real world conditions, but it shows the added efficiency. The Atom D525 has the highest clock speed yet delivers the worst overall results.

These results are very impressive, with CPU demand moving from a minimum of 7 percent to a maximum of 27 percent.

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.

The system is 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 Sapphire Pure Fusion leads the way, finishing the job 5 minutes faster than the L510 and 7 minutes faster than the Atom D525.

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.

This results are some of the best we have recorded, similar to the other Fusion system we tested recently, peaking at around 188MB/s read and 147 MB/s write.

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.

	Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 350
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 Sapphire 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.

Resident Evil 5, known in Japan as Biohazard 5, is a survival horror third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh instalment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on March 5, 2009 in Japan and on March 13, 2009 in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Windows version of the game was released on September 15, 2009 in North America, September 17 in Japan and September 18 in Europe. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

Within its first three weeks of release, the game sold over 2 million units worldwide and became the best-selling game of the franchise in the United Kingdom. As of December, 2009, Resident Evil 5 has sold 5.3 million copies worldwide since launch, becoming the best-selling Resident Evil game ever made.

Good performance levels at our chosen settings, with the graphics card being limited somewhat by the low power processor (and 4x PCIe Slot).

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.

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

With only one fan in this system, noise levels are very low, under 30 dBa when watching movies. Only when pushed for a long duration does the fan spin up to a maximum of 32.3dBa. 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.

Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. 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 fan.

Fusion products are cool running and even without chassis fans, this system isn't troubled at all. The processor peaks at 61c when fully loaded.

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.

From an idle reading of 31 watts, the Sapphire Pure Fusion peaks at 43 watts under load. Fantastic results from this low power system.

The Pure Fusion Mini 350 motherboard is an exciting new release from Sapphire. This range of products heralds a new age for AMD – one which calls for a very low power overhead while enabling the end user to enjoy high definition media content and accelerated video functionality.

When compared against the last generation Turion X64 X2 L510 at the same clock speed, the E350 APU is clearly superior. The higher clocked Atom D525 is also noticeably slower, even with hyperthreading enabled.

This system we built today was primarily focused around generating the lowest possible price point we could. We know that many people contemplating a Fusion build will be wanting a physically diminutive, quiet, low cost system to sit right next to their high definition television set.

KitGuru Sapphire Pure Fusion 350 System:
Sapphire Motherboard = estimated £85 inc vat.
250GB 2.5 inch hard drive = £30
Samsung 4GB DDR3 1066mhz SO-DIMM = £50
Thermaltake Element Q case = £50
Total System price = £215

So for just over £200 you could have a similar system connected to your high definition television at home. Obviously you could push the performance and capabilities further by adding other extras, such as a discrete graphics card, bluray optical drive and Solid State Drive for improved system response and boot up time.

The real strength of this system is when used as a media center. Our HQV image quality testing highlights that the HD6310 graphics are capable of outputing exceptionally high quality video. In a living room environment, by simply adding a remote, or a wireless/bluetooth keyboard it would serve well as a versatile ‘general use' platform for the whole family. Power drain is also very low, so you won't be painfully surprised with a high electricity bill next quarter if you leave this system on 24/7.

We also feel the Thermaltake Element Q is one of the better, more attractive, low cost chassis for a Fusion system build. The fact that it won't add any noise to the final build is certainly the icing on the cake. The Element Q pairs up with the Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 350 motherboard with both earning our ‘Worth Buying' Award.

KitGuru says: We really like the new AMD fusion platform, it runs very cool, demands little power and serves perfectly as a low cost 1080p capable media center. The Sapphire board is well built and remained rock solid through all our testing. Highly recommended.

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