REVIEWS / MOTHERBOARDS / MICRO STAR INTERNATIONAL (MSI)

MSI E350IA-E45: A Cheaper Brazos Arrives

24 Feb, 2011, 1:13 pm IST | by Rossi Fernandes | Motherboards

Motherboards


MSI's Brazos offering
Missing DVI port at the back of the MSI E350IA-E45
A small cooling solution is all the E350 needs
CMOS battery stuck to the back of the rear panel

PRICE IN INDIA

7,800

TECH2 RATING

8.0

AVERAGE USER RATING

8.5

How we test

CONTACT

Micro Star International (MSI)

 marketing@msi-in.com

 +91 11 4175 8808

 www.msi.com

A few days back, we reviewed the Gigabyte Brazos platform - the E350N-USB3, found it to be pretty good and an ideal solution as an HTPC board. MSI is another popular vendor in India which has started selling Brazos boards as well. Their E350IA-E45 model is next in line for review.

MSI's Brazos offering

MSI's Brazos offering

 

 

As the model name suggest, the MSI E350IA-E45 is also powered by the same AMD E-Series 350 APU and the AMD Hudson controller, which means integrated USB 3.0 support thanks to the Renesas-NEC collaboration with AMD. Let's see if it's any better than the Gigabyte.

Features
The MSI E350IA-E45 like the Gigabyte E350N-USB3 is a mini-ITX format board. Most of the features are identical to the Gigabyte E350N-USB3 board.

Missing DVI port at the back of the MSI E350IA-E45

Missing DVI port at the back of the MSI E350IA-E45

 

 

It has the same number of memory slots, the same number of SATA3 ports, USB3 ports and also the single PCI x4 slot. The MSI has more USB2 ports though. There are few visible differences, one being the ALC887 audio chipset in place of the ALC892 used on the Gigabyte board. There’s also a SPDIF connector present but a DVI connection missing on the MSI E350IA-E45.

A small cooling solution is all the E350 needs

A small cooling solution is all the E350 needs

 


The cooling solution on the MSI board isn’t as massive as the one on the Gigabyte, but judging by the heat generated on the Gigabyte board during the tests, it shouldn’t be a issue.

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Tags:

MSI E350IA-E45 , AMD , E350 , Motherboard , APU , Fusion , Processor , Mini ITX , Low power , USB3 , SATA3

Would you buy it?




MSI E350IA E45 BIOS

28 Feb, 2011, 11:21 pm IST

MSI E350IA E45 BIOS

 


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There are many other aspects of the product that are looked at such as the bundled software and accessories. All of these scores are aggregated together to form the final score.

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The product is bad in almost every aspect. We strongly advise against purchasing this product.

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