Home / PC / Base Unit / Foxconn AMD Fusion NT-A3500 Nettop Review

Foxconn AMD Fusion NT-A3500 Nettop Review

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

  • Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
  • Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
  • Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
  • Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
  • Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

  • SMP – Multi-Processor
  • MC – Multi-Core
  • SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
  • MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
  • GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
  • NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
  • AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
  • IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

A solid set of results for the Foxconn Fusion powered A3500 – generating the highest scores and significantly more than the Atom D525 system.

Become a Patron!

Check Also

Valve Steam

Valve overhauls Season Passes / DLC on Steam, for the better

Over the course of 2024, Valve has introduced a ton of new and appreciated pro-consumer features to its Steam platform. From the revamped family sharing to increased integration with the Steam Deck and more, Valve has been putting in the work to continue improving the platform. The latest update sees a new, more transparent / user-friendly approach to DLC and Season Passes.

17 comments

  1. Piano black is an instant turn off for me. I bought a PC chassis years ago with the same finish. in a day it looked about 3 years old and a total mess.

    I am still not sold on Fusion either, its better than Atom for sure, but what is the big deal?

  2. Whasts the big deal about fusion? the power consumption. It makes great sense in mobile sector and for 24/7 use.

  3. It looks great, and the low noise is a selling point, for me anyway as I hate fans whirring in a room.

    They should sell them preconfigured, people wont want to start fitting components, I know a lot of people who cant anyway.

  4. Well thought out, but I have an atom pc here and its a pain to use. I am positive fusion feels just as slow, even if its a bit faster.

    Core i3 for my next media center…….

  5. Yeah, it looks nice and all that, but man im not going to go for a low powered fusion desktop. laptop maybe, but I want a core i5 or i7 media center !

  6. Thats a really pretty littlemachine and very very small. ideal for a man who is married to a woman who nags when another case is brought into the house.

    I like the look of fusion, but im concerned about the performance. I had an atom laptop for a year and it drove me crazy. I cant see it being that big of a difference.

  7. That piano black puts me off, is the white nice looking>? ive only found low res versions online

  8. Loads of USB ports on that, first one ive seen with so many, always a selling point for me.

    I dont fancy arsing about inside it, ill be watching for preconfigured ones

  9. I dont think most people here understand what small factor and low power means, 15 and 17 could never compete with this standerd, price, energy, size is unbeatable…

    this would be perfect for my car

  10. I own this nettop and I like it a lot. I use it as desktop pc atm because my notebook crashed. The performance is quite good and in “normal” use ( office, surfing etc. ) everything feels fluid. Even multitasking works fine. The price-performance ratio is great and the form factor is just awesome. The configuration and installing of the RAM and hard disk is very easy, even if you don’t know much about computers.
    It plays 720p flawlessly. Can’t tell about 1080p atm, sry.
    I prefer it over atom. Atom + Ion2 is comparable if you look at benchmarks etc., but working with the fusion system feels smoother in daily use, dunno why. Everything seems to work a bit more fluidly.

  11. In the spec they mention 1066MHz DDR3, you have tested it with 1333MHz DDR3. Would it be possible to use it with 1600MHz DDR3?

    What is the limitation of HDD? 500GB?

  12. Hi Hramat. I didnt have any 1600mhz DDR3 handy to test so im not sure if it will run natively at that speed or downclock to 1333mhz, ill try and find out.

    The controller should read the latest 1TB 2.5inch drives such as the Samsung Spinpoint MT2 1TB, but again, I didn’t have one handy at the time. I don’t see a problem with that size.

  13. I will go with 1333MHz also. I was bit worried that it would be limited to 1066MHz.
    As HDD I will take SEAGATE Momentus XT, 500GB.

    I would like to use it with linux or XBMC. Just need to search for additional remote control

  14. I have set the NT-a3500 with
    ADATA Supreme Series SO-DIMM DDR3-1333, CL9 – 4 GB
    Seagate Momentus XT, SATA II, 7200RPM, 2,5 Zoll – 500 GB

    and all runs fine

  15. @ hrmat…. im getting exact setup. Hows Linux running for you? if so, what distro? are you using XBMC with it? Sorry for all the questions, ive had bad luck with Ubuntu 10.04 and video drivers, config. Took a lot of time to get stuff working.

  16. i have overheating. idle temperatures are 60 degrees celsius.
    On Load , while playing youtube videos, the CPU reaches 85 degrees.
    I think the fan over the cpu is undersized.
    I have broken already an hard disk due the higher temperatures. I think the foxconn is not very reliable……..