ASUS E35M1-M Pro Review - Anyone For Fusion?
by Brendan van Varik on October 25, 2011 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Asus
- Motherboards
- Fusion
- E-350
Board Features
ASUS E35M1-M Pro | |
Market Segment | HTPC |
CPU Interface | FT1 BGA |
CPU Support | Fusion |
Chipset | Hudson-M1 (A50M) |
Memory Slots |
Two DDR3 DIMM Maximum 8 GB Non-ECC Unbuffered |
Expansion Slots |
1 x PCIe x16 (x4 speed) 1 x PCIe x1 2 x PCI |
Onboard |
5 x SATA 6 Gbps Ports 1 x USB 3.0 header 4 x USB 2.0 headers 2 x Fan Headers 1 x Front Panel Audio Connector 1 x SPDIF Out Connector |
Onboard LAN | Realtek® 8111E PCIe Gigabit LAN controller |
Onboard Audio |
ALC892 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC Supports DTS Surround Sensation Ultra-PC |
Power Connectors |
24-pin ATX Power Connector 4-pin 12V CPU Power Connector |
Fan Headers |
1 x CPU (3-pin) 1 x CHA (3-pin) |
IO Panel |
1 x PS/2 Port 2 x USB 3.0 4 x USB 2.0 1 x HDMI 1 x D-SUB 1 x DVI 1 x eSATA 6 Gbps 1 x Gigabit Ethernet 3 x Audio Jacks |
BIOS Version | 0506 |
Warranty Period | 3 Year |
With regards to the networking and sound processors, ASUS have used the Realtek solutions. It is normal to see the Realtek chips onboard on a motherboard within this price range, but ASUS do occasionally use the Intel solutions on their higher end motherboards.
In The Box
2x SATA 6 Gbps cables
IO shield
1x CPU fan
Users guide
Driver DVD
No USB 3.0 bracket has been supplied but instead of the two SATA 6 Gbps cables which the manual stated, we received four cables in the box.
Software
As the software found with this board has been covered by both Ian in his ASUS P8Z68 Pro review and by me in the ASUS P8P67 review, I will just give you a quick run through. The software installation was easy - you have the choice to install all of the software which comes on the DVD or you can install each individual driver as you please. In our case, all of the drivers were installed in order to allow for a fair test.
From within the ASUS Suite II, you can overclock your system, change and apply fan settings, monitor temperatures and voltages, change the power saving settings to your requirements as well as being able to update the BIOS. There are no issues with this software from what I can see.
66 Comments
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frilans - Saturday, December 3, 2011 - link
Sandy Bridge can be passively cooled to safe temperatures under load. We have Intel Core i3-2105 (TDP 65W) processors in our office computers. I have built them with no moving parts in the H3.S case with passive cooling from HD-Plex (www.hd-plex.com)./Chris
duploxxx - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
much cheaper? the lowest priced mobo and the lowest price celeron will only get you in the same price range.not to mention the way higher TDP and I would love to see some GPU performance compares.
medi01 - Sunday, October 30, 2011 - link
SB celeron + motherboard is NOT "much cheaper than this APU".Stop spreading FUD, Intel fanboi.
plonk420 - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 - link
you can take the fan off just fine. ran for half a day like that.just to be nice, i put a PWM 120mm fan over it in the htpc case. can't hear it nor the PCP&C Silencer currently over my fridge running across the room.
davos555 - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
It is good for basic tasks - However I had one and it stuggles to play back HD video content - the hardware decoding doesn't work in linux media players because of lack of drivers. Apparantly it works best in Windows media players such as MPC but I havent test this!spaceyyeti - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
use xbmc. works great for me.C300fans - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
Yeah, SB will get much more ppd if you are crunching BOINC.futurepastnow - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
Great board for HTPC- unless you want to play modern 3D games on your TV. Then you'll need to step up to something with more CPU and graphics power.Also looks like it would be great for a home server, or a family member who only surfs the web and watches videos (that covers a lot of people).
mepenete - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 - link
runnin AMD for graphics? Nothin but trouble if you're in Linux.gevorg - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
Couple of questions:1) Can this thing FLAWLESSLY play high bitrate HD 1080p from a hard drive or blu-ray disk?
2) How good is the 23.976 playback?