Gigabyte GA-E350 WIN8 Motherboard with Embedded AMD E-350 APU

Back in October last year I wrote a post about Intel Atom NM10 chipset Mini-ITX boards. Since then I have built three computers very cheaply by taking old computers and putting these board inside as a replacement for the old board. This has worked well, but there have been issues. The first is that perhaps this board has been deliberately crippled by Intel, or aimed at a completely different market – it has various connectors designed to directly drive LCDs, but it is also limited to 4 GB of RAM, 32 bit editions of Windows (there is only a 32 bit video driver available), and there are only two SATA ports although they do support hotplugging. The second issue is that Intel claims it can play HD video, but in reality it simply cannot handle anywhere near HD, with a lot of stuttering. So three is as much of these as I can ever be bothered with. At that point I went and had a look at what else was readily available (and affordable) in NZ and found that Gigabyte produce one that is based on the AMD Brazos CPU. Since I first looked at it there has been a model change and now the Gigabyte GA-E350 WIN8 board is available. This is somewhat different from this variant described at Tom’s Hardware which you could see by comparing the ports out: the WIN8 board has separate PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors, no USB3 ports, no DVI port (but does keep the HDMI) and only the standard three audio ports. So there are a few different models of these boards produced by Gigabyte. The best things about this board are four SATA ports, standard DIMM slots for the memory, and it can take more memory (8 GB or so). Unlike the Atom board it is fan cooled, and it also has hotplug capability on all of the SATA ports.

The installed board. Like the Atom board it works fine with just a 2x10 main power connector, unlike that one it makes use of the 4 pin CPU power connector, theoretically this and the fan allow overclocking. Interestingly the original board in this chassis, an Intel D915GAG, used an onboard Molex disk drive power connector – that seems to be an idea that fell out of favour. Probably that was at least in part because the CPU power connector used today is supposed to receive 3.3 volts on 1 pair of pins – whereas the disk drive connector supplies 5 V at its lowest. You can see that the memory is a low profile DIMM in keeping with the formfactor for the rest of the board. Note that parallel port to the left, which is stacked on top of a serial port and VGA connector. Although it doesn’t have the DVI connector, the HDMI socket can be used with a simple adaptor to drive DVI cables.

The inside of the computer’s chassis with the board installed. This chassis is capable of receiving a full size ATX board so it’s understandable it looks cavernous with the Mini-ITX board installed. For the interested this is a Foxconn TS001 chassis. The Enermax power supply is ATX1.2 standard and the original computer would be about six years old. With the extra motherboard SATA ports I can have a DVD writer as well as the eSATA connector bracket in this computer. The latter can be seen lower left and basically lets me plug in any SATA 2.5” or 3.5” hard drive on the outside of the case. The lack of USB3 ports is an issue I have thought of. There are as far as I know, no manufacturers producing PCI cards for USB3 so there is no way of getting USB3 on this board (although fair to say the Atom didn’t allow it either). The SATA external adapter lets me get around that if I take the HDD out of the enclosure and connect it via SATA instead so the lack of USB3 isn’t such an issue but it does seem odd considering an earlier model did have USB3 ports. The other gripe is that the earlier model board also had a PCIe slot instead of PCI.

So this board displaced one of those three Atom boards – another one got displaced recently by another Gigabyte board (an Intel 3 series chipset board with a Core2 Pentium on it) which is in one of my home computers. So one of those Atoms then went into an old computer at work to use as a testbed, and another Atom is in a box waiting to see what else I can use it for.

So far as this E350N board goes, it’s interesting to read the full review of 8 such boards on Tom’s Hardware. With integrated Radeon graphics I expect it would play video much better than the Atom, although I haven’t tried yet. Ultimately this board may end up at home if I decide to do a HTPC – that will probably go into a proper mini chassis instead of a regular one. According to the Passmark CPUBenchmark site the APU’s score is 769, which is on a par with some older Core2 chips, but well below the 3034 score for the Pentium G2120 in my home computer. Supposedly the Atom D2700 has a better score at 831. But I would expect the better graphics of the E350 to make up for any overall deficiency elsewhere.

Gigabyte beats Intel every time

The truth is most independent hardware vendors can beat Intel in customer service. Intel still takes the lead in sheer technological achievement and development, but the flip side of that is the arrogance that comes from being the dominant player in the computer industry. I switched to using Gigabyte motherboards a couple of years ago and haven’t yet regretted it. There are numbers of independent hardware vendors that have taken Intel’s chips and made a much better job of producing something that works than the chipmaker itself. Over and over we have seen sagas over bad drivers and inbuilt obsolescence. Intel really got my goat when Windows Vista came out and they pressured Microsoft to certify the D915 and related chipsets as “Vista Ready” when they could not work under the Aero display model that was a core feature of the new OS graphics architecture. Then when I got into small form factor boards more recently, the Intel Atom D2700 offerings turned out to be very lacking in video drivers and could not meet up to the claims made of them. Further sagas have followed with onboard USB3 drivers and now the graphics drivers for the H97 motherboard in my main PC.

So this week I put a graphics card into my Gigabyte H97-D3H system. I have a couple of these NV210SL-1G1 cards in different computers and while the performance for gaming would be pretty light, it is just what is needed for the kind of stuff I do; more importantly, NVidia is much better at this job than Intel. After months of display driver problems it is really refreshing to have everything working properly again. If you followed my saga on my FB page, this was the card that the system wouldn’t boot up seemingly when I first built it. Just as with the DB75EN that wouldn’t boot my new quad head NVidia card, I put in the latest BIOS update for the motherboard and everything has come up brilliantly. Even though the Intel onboard chipset can handle three outputs compared to the NVidia card’s two, the latter is much more reliable overall, and this computer only has two displays.

Cameras

Still thinking about that DSLR and planning on maybe a EOS 600D with just one lens. Although to make it harder Canon has just brought out the compact EOS 100D, about $200 dearer though. Currently an EOS 600D with the kit 18-55 lens is $890, body only is $798. You can have the twin lens kit for $1250. However you could also pick up the body and fit it with a separate Tamron or something for close to $1200-1300. At this stage I may just go with the 18-55 and maybe pick up something else later. Tamron do have an 18-200 quite cheap about $330, there is also a similar but slightly dearer Sigma. Probably will buy the 600D with the single lens and maybe add another lens later.

Not providing any new camera totals as I have pretty well stopped taking lots of photos of the city since the 2nd earthquake anniversary. Most of the reason is no one is looking at them. The SX150 has had a handful taken, while the SX260 has hardly been used at all.

Other options are the new 100D and 700D. The latter is just an updated 650D and therefore offers very little. If it was as small as the 100D with the 600D’s screen it might be worth looking at but that is not the case. The 100D is interesting but is notably missing the articulated screen, if it had one fitted it would be worthy of consideration. But I might still have a look at it in the shop. After a great deal of consideration I think the 600D twin lens kit is the one I would probably go for, with a case that can accommodate it plus the flash. The standard twin lens kit of the 100D is about $200 more so it will be a tough choice. I think on reflection one of these twin lens kits is the one I will go for, possibly the 600D with one. Also looking at opportunities within one of the schools to do some voluntary photography for them.

Plenty of smoke and mirrors with the biggest camera manufacturers

Am I just a whinger or is this sort of thing becoming more prevalent these days? Here are two examples with different types of cameras I looked at recently.

First example is the Canon EOS-M, a cute little Micro Four Thirds type mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (MILC). Based on the EOS 600D it is much smaller and uses its own new lens mount. It has taken Canon a long, long time to see this trend and produce its own model of camera. To a very mixed bag of reviews. Most of the reviews I read summed up in basically the same way: this camera was a long time coming, and it’s surprisingly stripped of features considering its price. For example, few lenses and no inbuilt flash. Most of the reviewers imply Canon has only produced this model to head off competition from everyone else, and they aren’t really interested in innovating or capturing a new market segment; they won’t produce a camera that will cut into their D-SLR sales. Rumour has it that a model with built in electronic viewfinder is coming soon, but maybe it still won’t have a built in flash. The lack of longer lenses means this model really is targeted at the high end of the point and shoot market, one step up from either a superzoom, or a large sensor fixed lens compact. Even though you can put any EF-S lens on it with an adapter, Canon has cynically priced this adapter at around $200 to encourage those interested in this route to spend this on a 600D instead.

Secondly, the lower end Sony Handycams: models that sell for up to $650 in NZ at the present time. These have some nice features but the sensor resolution is not one of them. Sony puts a 1.5 megapixel sensor into a Handycam and then claims it can do full 1080 HD recording. The only way it can do this is by interpolating the sensor output, of course. An even more misleading claim (stated in big letters on the outside of the case) is that it can take still pictures at a 5.3 megapixel resolution. Obviously with significant interpolation. Let’s get it plain: interpolation is basically the same as running any image through a piece of software on your computer to scale an image to a larger size. You lose sharpness and quality in doing it. Now when there are tiny sensors in handheld cameras that can easily do the higher resolutions, why is Sony persisting in a Handycam with a low resolution sensor and then masking it with puffery about being able to do these higher resolutions. Just how much would it cost them to put a 5 megapixel sensor into the camera and sell it on the basis of being able to do these things? Next to nothing. I’ve got a still camera here that cost $500 and it can do both those things and it has a zoom lens of 20x. It isn’t as easy to hold as a Handycam, that’s true, and it does cost a bit more to buy in the first place, but that is to be expected with some extra features it has. On the balance I can’t see why Sony is trying to fool people with the misleading claims about the performance of this Handycam, but I guess they are also trying to push people towards the $1000-plus end of their range, remembering they also produce models in the semi-professional market.

So if you want to buy a half decent camera then don’t buy one from any manufacturer that produces a high end professional range. These two examples show they are not really interested in the low end mass market if it threatens their high end high margin stuff. And that is a pity because Canon, for example, does make a lot of half decent compact cameras. It is just that blindingly obvious that Canon don’t want to produce a half decent compact interchangeable lens camera that will cut into their sales of full D-SLRs. Likewise Sony don’t want to produce a Handycam that has similar specs and performance to a digital still compact camera of similar price, they want to put in features that aren’t essential (like the LED projector in some models) and hope people will go for these instead of a higher quality picture, fooling people with interpolation processing. There is one killer feature that virtually all Handycams, even the cheapest $300 model, have, and that is Sony’s remote control tripod, for serious shooters, with all the controls you need on the handle. Another great feature is USB charging, so you can plug in the Juicestation to charge it up if it goes flat out in the field. But at the low end a lot of people won’t buy these accessories. If Sony was producing a model up to say $500 with a half decent sensor in it, then it would be worth buying one. Because I do shoot a bit of video, mostly for school events, and none of my still cameras so far have been able to charge the battery from a USB power source. Plus it can do that remote control tripod thing. But without the image quality for still images, it isn’t worth spending more than $300 on one of these things, so you don’t need the one with the projector in it, for sure. Basically being able to shoot at more than DVD quality is what makes HD video worth having a proper camera for. You can capture a whole lot more with a pan across a scene and then go back later and pick up a frame from it that shows something different that you might not have noticed the first time. It is like listening to good music and picking out the sounds of instruments that you never noticed before. And then you want to have a camera that can do say 2 megapixels out of the box. It’s been years since I’ve seen a camera that claimed a higher resolution through interpolation – and it was another Sony camera – a still one. People aren’t fooled by all that money just for a name, these days. I actually thought the 5.3 megapixel claim was genuine until I read the reviews. No one, not no one, not even Canon, will put such a claim on a digital still camera these days, when they say 14 megapixel then they are talking about a chip with that number of actual pixels. So why it is acceptable for Sony to do this?

Still looking at that Canon D-SLR and which model would be the most useful. Again it’s a tossup between the EOS1100D, EOS 600D and EOS650D. But I wouldn’t use the camera all that much and that is the biggest thing that tends to pull me towards the lower price end. The little MILC was worth a look, but in low light conditions the optical viewfinder and manual zoom ring on the full D-SLR kills it hands down, and that is one of the main reasons I would want to buy a D-SLR in the first place, because of useability in low light conditions. The EOS600D is shaping up to be the best all round combination I think – better video performance, the articulating screen, auto sensor cleaning, these are all missing from the 1100D and it is better made. In fact once I read the reviews in more detail, there is nothing in the more expensive 650D that would make it worth the extra $200. The 600D offers all the features I would ever use – like an external video mic capability, full adjustable exposure during video operation and so forth – it turns out that the 650D doesn’t really justify the extra cost at all.