Asus E35M1-M Pro review

The wait is over. AMD's first Fusion APU (Accelerated Processing Unit), the AMD E-350, has finally arrived courtesy of the Asus E35M1-M PRO motherboard.

Exciting times, but this isn't quite the chip we were expecting.

Wind back the clock a couple of years and we thought a processor based on AMD's exotic new Bulldozer core would be the first CPU-GPU Fusion model out of AMD's gate.

Instead, the AMD E-350 is an ultra low-power chip and the Asus E35M1-M Pro is a compact Micro-ATX board designed for low-profile systems.

That said, the AMD E-350 APU is certainly all new.

Prior to its arrival, all of AMD's PC processors were effectively derivatives of a single architecture. In terms of power consumption, the range was large kicking off at 9W and extending all the way to 140W.

Likewise, there are all kinds of configurations available up to and including six-core processors.

But the future of computing is all about low power and small form factors including everything from smartphones and tablets to netbooks and embedded devices.

AMD needs something that can at least form the basis of the quest for the fabled 1W CPU.

Admittedly, AMD's main rival Intel has been ahead of the curve with this trend with the Atom, a processor that was met with confusion when it appeared nearly three years ago but now seems increasingly prescient.

Whatever, for AMD that low-power something is Bobcat, the first properly new AMD core since the Hammer architecture of 2003 and designed from the ground up for maximum efficiency. Our first look at a Bobcat-based processor is itself codenamed Zacate, a dual-core chip with on-die graphics.

It's not designed for the very smallest mobile devices such as smartphones, but it could well appear in just about every other class of device, including tablets and slates.

On paper, Zacate should be significantly stronger than Atom.

Granted, it lacks HyperThreading, but in terms of instruction handling, it's a pukka out-of-order design. That should give it a clear advantage regards work done per clock cycle compared to Intel's simpler in-order Atom.

Of course, the new Bobcat core aside, the other key element with the Zacate processor die in general and the AMD E-350 model tested here is its status as AMD's first CPU-GPU "Fusion" processor.

Intel got there first with 'Fusion' though with the Westmere and now Sandy Bridge cores. But AMD has traditionally been stronger in graphics and also first to do a low power Fusion chip.

Moreover, there's no getting round the fact the Intel Atom platform's performance has been lame in both CPU and particularly graphics terms. Zacate brings a full DX11 graphics core to the ultra low power space for the first time and just as importantly a complete set of 2D video acceleration features.

One of the most disappointing aspects of many Atom-powered netbooks is their inability to handle high definition video. With Zacate, AMD is promising to bring HD support to new price points and form factors.

It really is all to play for.