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As this Sapphire Pure Fusion board will be retailing in the UK for around £80-£90 inc vat, we wanted to keep the cost of our system build down as low as possible.
Thermaltake create one of the nicest, low cost media chassis on the market, the Element Q. This can be picked up for around £50 inc vat and includes a small power supply ideal for powering the Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini 350 motherboard.
The Element Q is a very attractive design – very simple, with an orange accent at the front. There are plenty of air vents on the side panels to help with airflow. To keep noise to a minimum there are no fans in the case, and we won't need any with the cool running AMD design.
Four screws hold the chassis in place, and when removed it slides backwards. Thermaltake save space by bundling the extras inside the chassis. There are mounting screws, rubber feet, drive holders and a speaker.
The first step in the system build is to remove the power supply completely. This ensures more working space for the motherboard installation.
This motherboard requires DDR3 SO-DIMMs, which are slightly more expensive than ordinary desktop based DDR3 sticks. Above, we are using 4GB of Samsung 1066mhz memory which costs around £50 online. Check ebay for up to the minute low price deals. It can also support cheaper, slower 800mhz memory, but we strongly recommend you spend a little extra.
The motherboard is installed by simply using four of the supplied screws in the bundle. The case supports both 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch drives, for this particular build we are using a cheap 2.5 inch 250GB hard drive.
Once the motherboard and hard drive are fitted and all the cabling is sorted, the power supply can be returned to place. The case can also house an optical drive, although we prefer to use an external ASUS bluray unit.
The system build, which took literally 10 minutes to complete.
The finished system build. Very sexy.
Very nice, I think these will work well in low powered laptops. whenever they make an entrance here in the UK
Well I would say this is a great board, but why on earth are they using SODIMMS? eh? say what?
Quality Sapphire product, but my big question is,. do these systems feel as sluggish as ATOM systems? people who use them will know what I mean. everything you do takes about 2 seconds for the system to take action, even when you are only answering an email.
Good reading, I too am wondering why sapphire opted for SODIMMS on this board. its a bizarre choice.
I think this is $110 bucks, for the board alone. I think it might end up nearer £100 when it hits the rip off UK shores. everything is going up in price with this fucking VAT garbage.
Why are none of the retailers stocking fusion boards in the UK yet? can anyone see them anywhere? OCUK dont even have a category for them at all. I thought the official release was january? anyone?
Ah the mysterious fusion, which is as yet, no where in the UK for sale. AMD really have tried hard to maximise their name and product range while intel was reeling with the sandybridge fiasco. yes, im being sarcastic.
The boards ARE TOO EXPENSIVE. AMD, get your finger out. no one will pay £90 for one of these. they need to drop to £60 inc vat! madness.
Thanks for the review, Zardon. I’m happy to see more Fusion reviews appearing.
@Brian Crucnsnans, huh? Why wouldn’t people pay £90 for a board that’s better specced than a higher cost Atom/Ion one? Not to mention that it’s a Sapphire product, so why are you pointing the finger at AMD? I’m sure someone will come out with a cheaper board without Bluetooth and other goodies, which might fit better into your price range.
I tend to agree with ET. The board is very well specified. USB 3, SATA 6Gbps, bluetooth, esata. You name it, the sapphire board has it. I am sure cheaper versions of these boards will be released with cut down specifications. Also very interesting to see the ram performance on this product isn’t any less than the higher rated MSI product.
Why wouldnt it be worth £90? seems a really good bit of kit with loads of connectivity. Im waiting on the new sony netbook to hit the UK.
Not sure about that case, but the board seems solid. I have a lot of DDR3 dimms here from older laptops. which would come in handy for a build like this.
One BIOS screen I’d love to see is the GFX configuration.
Stop complaining about cost. The ASRock is on sale on both sides of the Atlantic for $110 here and I’ve seen it for 95P/E here. If want a board that will be dirt cheap and still have HDMI, wait for the Jetway NC85. Still dual core, still HDMI 1.3 and everything else legacy ports, likely to be under $100US, and under 90E.