The Brazos Round-Up: Eight AMD E-350-Based Motherboards

By Thomas Soderstrom
published

AMD’s Brazos platform, driven by the Zacate APU, offers a lot of performance per watt. It comes up short on features, though. Eight manufacturers try to change that perception by adding slots, controllers, and even overclocking in a couple of cases.

Foxconn AHD1S-K

Compared to ECS’ name, Foxconn’s AHD1S-K is simply cryptic. The motherboard itself, however, is a straightforward value-oriented part.

With no USB 3.0 or mini PCIe slot, no eSATA and only two SATA 3Gb/s ports, the AHD1S-K takes simplicity to extremes. This design gives us added hope for its efficiency tests, though we do question the rationale for pairing a 4-pin CPU power connector with a low-energy CPU on this non-overclocking product.

Foxconn is one of the few brands to choose purely passive cooling for AMD’s E350. We can only hope the E350’s heat output is low enough to assure the adequacy of this simplified design.

It appears that this might be a pre-retail version of the AHD1S-K, since the package lacks an I/O panel shield. Retail buyers should find one in their box, however, along with two SATA cables and a driver CD.

AHD1S-K Tuning

Unlike some of its competitors, Foxconn doesn’t cheat in benchmarks by using a nonstandard default reference clock. CPU-Z shows the AHD1S-K spot-on at 100 MHz, resulting in a 1600 MHz APU frequency.

Unfortunately, the AHD1S-K does not support DDR3-1333, either by automatic detection or manual configuration. The board is certain to take a performance hit in some of our tests, with a DDR3-1066 data rate represented as a 533 MHz memory clock in GPU-Z.

In fact, the only overclocking-oriented adjustment has nothing to do with frequency. Memory voltage can be increased up to 90 mV over default, which should help add stability to some so-called performance RAM.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
37 Comments Comment from the forums
  • gameworm
    The Zotac board actually is available on Newegg

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500068

    Only problem is that it is $160 instead of $130

    Otherwise very nice roundup. I've been thinking of using one of these for a server/NAS.
    Reply
  • vaughn2k
    Wow! AS-rocks!
    Reply
  • noob2222
    Odd timing for the roundup, Llano just came out, these will be discontinued asap.

    Not good for much save storage, but that wasn't tested. Would have much rather see an A8 board roundup since they are on newegg now. Picked up one myself for my htpc/storage setup.
    Reply
  • Mathos
    noob2222Odd timing for the roundup, Llano just came out, these will be discontinued asap.Not good for much save storage, but that wasn't tested. Would have much rather see an A8 board roundup since they are on newegg now. Picked up one myself for my htpc/storage setup.
    Uh no, Brazos is bast on the Bobcat core which is a low power version of Bulldozer. These are meant for ultra portables and netbooks, nettops, ultrathin notebooks and the likes.

    Llano is the entry level desktop APU until they switch from Stars cores on those to the newer bulldozer cores.
    Reply
  • noob2222
    mathosUh no, Brazos is bast on the Bobcat core which is a low power version of Bulldozer. These are meant for ultra portables and netbooks, nettops, ultrathin notebooks and the likes.And yet this roundup is .... desktop boards.

    And brazos has nothing in common with bulldozer.
    Reply
  • BulkZerker
    mathosUh no, Brazos is bast on the Bobcat core which is a low power version of Bulldozer. These are meant for ultra portables and netbooks, nettops, ultrathin notebooks and the likes. Llano is the entry level desktop APU until they switch from Stars cores on those to the newer bulldozer cores.
    noob2222And yet this roundup is .... desktop boards. And brazos has nothing in common with bulldozer.

    Net TOP. Meaning a low power ITX board. Brazos is merely a stopgap till AMD has the tooling to kick out tons of BD cores. Though I will agree this roundup is a bit late it is at least thorough.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    gamewormThe Zotac board actually is available on Newegghttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod 6813500068Only problem is that it is $160 instead of $130Otherwise very nice roundup. I've been thinking of using one of these for a server/NAS.
    Good call--that board only recently became available, after this story was scheduled to be published. We've since updated the conclusion and price chart to reflect the market as of July 4th, 2011.

    Cheers,
    Chris
    Reply
  • GaMEChld
    BulkZerkerNet TOP. Meaning a low power ITX board. Brazos is merely a stopgap till AMD has the tooling to kick out tons of BD cores. Though I will agree this roundup is a bit late it is at least thorough.
    Brazos is NOT a stopgap, it is meant for very low power applications. It's basically AMD's take on Atom style devices. Bulldozer is not meant to scale to this low power envelope. That's why there are already plans for Brazos successors. Ontario/Zacate will be replaced by Khrishna/Wichita. Llano will be succeeded by Trinity, which is Bulldozer based. Zambezi is supposed to be succeeded by something called Komodo, which I haven't read much about.
    Reply
  • silverblue
    Trinity and Komodo are both Enhanced Bulldozer. As such, Trinity will not be using Zambezi cores.
    Reply
  • Well, aside from a few bits about Brazos being a stop-gap based on Bulldozer being wrong, the basic premise of "odd timing for a Brazos roundup" holds true.

    Llano for laptops is out-freaking-standing, Llano for desktops is amazing for cheap OEM-built desktops and small form-factor HTPCs. TBH, it shouldn't excite much of anyone else, nor was it intended to replace Phenom II + dGPU for enthusiasts.
    Reply