The netbook and nettop market segments have considerably fully grown in the last few years, and with it a whole new wave of compact and push efficient computing platforms. Although this may seem like a comparatively spic-and-span idea, it actually isn't.

VIA Technologies, who you mightiness recall as combined of the leading manufacturers of motherboard chipsets from past, began pushing the concept long agone developing the Mini-ITX standard in the treat. Information technology's now been a decade since they discharged the low gear denotation design for an ITX motherboard to promote the low-power C3 processor they bought from Centaur Technology.

The first VIA EPIA motherboards were sold-out in 2002 featuring the Eden processor. Although the VIA EPIA motherboards were very efficient in terms of space, many argued that they were too expensive for the processing mightiness they provided.

VIA struggled with the engineering science for half-dozen years until June 2008, when Intel started to notice the emerging low-toned-powerfulness market. The chip giant introduced a line of Mini-ITX boards using their Atom processor, taking huge leaping forward from VIA's C3 and C7 offerings. What is more, Atom was the cardinal to making the form factor viable for use in personal computers.

Admittedly the Atom processors were still pretty sluggish by desktop standards commanded by quad-core CPUs of the time, just they allowed manufacturers like Asus to build the highly successful line of Eee netbooks, and the dozens if not hundreds of powerless, inexpensive systems that followed behind. The initial Atom "Diamondville" architecture suffered from some inadequacies as it relied on the older 945G chipset for most of its features, including the graphics engine.

Intel eventually released the "Pineview" computer architecture after-hours last year, which moved the retentivity controller and the GMA 3150 graphics engine onto the processor. Still, both the Atom CPU and the GMA 3150 lacked power and as a result manufacturers such A Asrock who wanted to build more effective HTPC dedicated systems has to rely on the Nvidia Ion add-on chip for graphics.

Historically, AMD has been known for delivering the best integrated graphics in the business, yet they've barely covered in the powerless netbook and nettop arenas. At present some threesome years after Intel released the Atom, AMD is winning its shooting at this exciting market segment.

AMD Fusion is the merchandising name for a series of APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) that have purportedly been in development since 2006. The final design is the result of AMD's amalgamation with ATI, combine unspecialized mainframe execution as advisable as 3D geometry processing and other functions of forward-looking GPUs into a one-man splintering.

AMD's ultrathin platform, code-named "Brazos", was introduced on January 5, 2011 as the company's fourth part maneuverable platform targeting the ultra-portable notebook market. IT features the 40nm AMD Ontario APU, a 9-watt chip for netbooks and littler var. factor desktops, and Zacate, an 18-watt APU for ultrathin, mainstream, and time value notebooks and desktops.

Some low-power APU versions carry cardinal Bobcat x86 cores on-buffalo chip, patronize for DirectX 11, DirectCompute (Microsoft programming interface for GPU computing) and OpenCL (cross-platform programming user interface standard for multi-core x86 and accelerated GPU computing). Both likewise admit UVD dedicated hardware acceleration for HD video including 1080p resolutions.

The Asus E35M1-M In favou motherboard we are testing today is, of trend, an implementation of the AMD Unification/Brazos platform that packs a duple-core AMD Zacate 18W C.P.U. (formally known as the E-350 APU), graphics support for the aforementioned standards along with USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s, qualification for a relatively inexpensive bundle at $140. Read connected...