Zotac FUSION350-A-E Motherboard Review

On-board Peripherals

The manufacturer calls the chip paired with the E-350 CPU the “FCH” (Fusion Controller Hub), and the model used on the FUSION350-A-E is the A50M. This chip supports six SATA-600 ports (no RAID support), and the board comes with four SATA-600 ports and one eSATA-600 port.

Figure 4: SATA-600 ports

The FUSION350-A-E doesn’t have parallel ATA or floppy ports.

This motherboard has six USB 2.0 ports, four soldered on the rear panel and two available through one header located on the motherboard. It also has four USB 3.0 ports, two available on the motherboard rear panel and two in the motherboard header, controlled by a VIA VL800 chip.

This motherboard doesn’t have FireWire ports.

The Zotac FUSION350-A-E supports 7.1+2 audio format, which means eight channels plus two independent audio streaming channels. The audio is generated by the chipset using a Realtek ALC892 codec, which has a 97 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 90 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs, and 24-bit resolution. These specifications are good for the mainstream user, but if you are looking into working professionally with audio editing, you should look for a motherboard that provides an SNR of at least 97 dB for the analog input.

The audio connectors at the rear panel are independent if you use a 5.1 analog speaker set, but if you use a 7.1 analog outputs, you will need to use the “mic in” or the “line in” connector. The motherboard has an on-board optical SPDIF output on the rear panel, and you can install an SPDIF coaxial output using a header available on the motherboard.

The FUSION350-A-E has one Gigabit Ethernet port, controlled by a Realtek RTL8111E chip.

In Figure 5, you can see the motherboard rear panel, with a shared PS/2 connector for keyboard and mouse, two USB 3.0 ports (blue connectors), DisplayPort output, HDMI port, two connectors for wireless network antennas, DVI-D video output, one eSATA-600 port, four USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and 7.1 analog audio shared audio connectors.

Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel