AMD Fusion E-350 APU Platform Review

The AMD Fusion platform is the long-awaited result of the merger between CPU developer AMD and GPU developer ATI. The merger was originally announced and finalized back in mid-2006. Soon after that, the new AMD announced the Fusion program that would merge the CPU and GPU onto a single smaller die. Additionally, it would include at least 16 lanes for PCI Express connections, completely eliminating the need for a Northbridge.

The promised product would be a single chip with a smaller footprint, less power consumption and less heat dissipation that the individual components it replaced. Performance-wise, Fusion would be placed against "mainstream" offerings from rival Intel that leveraged "integrated" graphics solutions. At the time of the initial announcements, the integrated graphics solutions were integrated into the motherboard. Since then, Intel has mimicked AMD with the launch of it's Sandy Bridge CPUs which include graphics processing on the CPU die.

The goal of the Fusion platform is to provide what AMD calls the "HD 2.0" experience for users, in an increasingly smaller and lighter formfactor. This second generation HD experience includes not only watching HD content (such as web videos and Blu-Ray), but also creating that content from HD flipcams, phones and web sources. Additionally, AMD expects the fusion platform to provide an modern DX11 gaming experience to users.

After a long five year wait, the first fruits of this merger hit the PC market with the Fusion E-Series and C-Series, which were designed for netbooks, ultra-portables and all-in-one desktops.

Initially showed at CES 2011, the "darling" of the group quickly advanced to the front in the form of the AMD Fusion E-350. Codenamed "Zacate", this APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) took headlines by powering a number of well received ultra-portables such as the HP Pavilion dm1z.

This review doesn't focus on any one product, or specific implementation of the Fusion E-350. This review looks at the platform as a whole, and how it performs from a gaming perspective. Below is a table that outlines all of the APUs in the Brazos platform: