How does the AMD E-350 fare vs. Intel’s CPU?

The introduction of the AMD Fusion APU has sparked a lot of curiosity among consumers who only had Intel’s Atom and ULVs as lone choices for netbooks and ultraportables for a long time. Among AMD’s new CPU line-up is the dual-core E-350 running at 1.6GHz.

AMD’s Fusion APU can be considered a direct competitor to Intel’s HD Graphics embedded chip, specifically the one on the Core i3. It can also be compared to the older Intel Core 2 Duo ULV processors with Intel GMA 4500 chips or the newer set of dual-core Atom processors coupled with NVidia Ion2 chip.

So what we have here below is a line-up of ultraportables running various Intel and AMD chips with their Windows Experience Index taken during review.

Intel Core i3 330UM ULV @ 1.2GHz with Intel HD Graphics
(Asus UL20FT)

Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 @ 1.3GHz with Intel GMA 4500MHD
(Asus UL20A)

Intel Atom D525 Dual Core @ 1.8GHz with NVidia Ion2
(Asus Eee PC 1215N)

AMD Athlon II Neo K125 @ 1.7GHz with ATI Radeon HD 4225
(Acer Aspire One 721)

AMD Athlon II Neo K325 @ 1.3GHz with ATI Radeon HD 4225
(Acer Aspire 1551)

AMD E-350 @ 1.6GHz with AMD Radeon HD6310
(Sony Vaio Y)

In terms of processor, the AMD E-350 is just below the old Intel ULVs by a couple of points and much lower than a ULV Core i3. However, it beats the Intel Atom D525 Dual Core @ 1.8GHz processor by a significant difference.

It’s actually in the graphics department where the E-350 with its Radeon HD6310 trumps everybody else — Intel GMA 4500MHD, Intel HD Graphics and even beating the NVidia Ion2 as well.

Here’s a chart of WEI sub-scores of all netbook/ultraportable CPUs we’ve tested before.

The AMD E-350 chip has a TDP of 18watts which is exactly the same the Intel Core i3-330UM so it terms of battery life, they’re pretty much at par with each other. This comparison is only based on WEI and is in-conclusive but that should give us a good birds eye view of where AMD’s Fusion APU is positioned.