ATI's All-In-Wonder X1900 Performance And DVD Decoding Quality
by Josh Venning on February 10, 2006 8:45 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
HQV Picture Detail Test
This test helps determine if there is any sharpening applied to the video, and if so how "clean" it is. Excessive sharpening results in a lower score than more realistic or subtle sharpening. We found that ATI seemed to apply no sharpening at all, while NVIDIA applied a good quality soft, natural sharpening.
On the plus side, sharpening is not always the best thing to do in every situation. In many cases, the creators of the DVD will have already sharpened the video to the level they wanted. In such a case, using the decoder to apply more sharpening would detract from the experience the author intended. Thus, for this test, we are happy to see that neither ATI nor NVIDIA over sharpen, and we aren't really convinced that a higher score always means better quality here. Even in this test, you can see that the difference is very subtle between NVIDIA and ATI. Look at the differences in the bridge especially.
This test helps determine if there is any sharpening applied to the video, and if so how "clean" it is. Excessive sharpening results in a lower score than more realistic or subtle sharpening. We found that ATI seemed to apply no sharpening at all, while NVIDIA applied a good quality soft, natural sharpening.
On the plus side, sharpening is not always the best thing to do in every situation. In many cases, the creators of the DVD will have already sharpened the video to the level they wanted. In such a case, using the decoder to apply more sharpening would detract from the experience the author intended. Thus, for this test, we are happy to see that neither ATI nor NVIDIA over sharpen, and we aren't really convinced that a higher score always means better quality here. Even in this test, you can see that the difference is very subtle between NVIDIA and ATI. Look at the differences in the bridge especially.
- ATI: 0
- NVIDIA: 10
- (highest score: 10)
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Sunrise089 - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
You have identical numbers for w/ AA and w/o. Also, the text's comment on the X1900AIW being playable at all reolutions with AA uses the incorrect numbers.plonk420 - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
does the ATI decoder give you the option to ADD sharpening? or not at all? my whole reason for wanting a (hardware accellerated) software decoder is so i can have a pic quality rivaling a ("popular") $200 hardware player for whatever extra it would be for the software. supposedly free for ATI or $30 for nVidia (for my application: 2.0 sound)hwhacker - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
here we go:http://www.bytesector.com/data/bs-article.asp?ID=6...">http://www.bytesector.com/data/bs-article.asp?ID=6...
590/684...I was close.
18+% improvement in 3dmark06, you know that has to translate to something good in gaming.
hwhacker - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
It uses 2.0ns chips from what I recall, as does newer BBA x1800xl's (instead of 1.4ns).There was one site that did an overclocking section on it, I forget which. The results were similar to x1800xl's, the end clock speed ending up 600+/almost 700 iirc. You know how XL's clock, i'm sure.
So in essence, yes, it overclocks well, and I do remember the site being amazed by the performance improvement through overclocking. I still don't get how 2.0ns chips can hit 1.4ns speeds if there is a speed bin in-between for cards like nvidia's 7800gt/gtx that you would think use that supply...but i've seen quite a few cards with the newer, slower, chips hitting the same approx speeds as the old ones with 1.4ns, and i'm not complaining. ;)
I'm sure with the overclock or ATiTool soft-vmods this thing would be killer, especially with better cooling than the known-for-sucking XL stock cooler.
Shadowmage - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
What I'm curious to know is whether the AIW can overclock to roughly XT/XTX speeds.What type of RAM does the AIW use?
Zebo - Saturday, February 11, 2006 - link
Agreed. How can AT not include this? Lame.DigitalFreak - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
Although I appreciate the DVD decoder tests, how is this review related to the AIW features of the card?highlandsun - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
I would have been more interested in seeing how well it handled H.264 decoding at 1920x1080p.oxid - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
does the 7800 gt use another video processor then the GTX? because in the last review with the HQV tests the 7800 gtx scored better then the gt in this review...mpeavid - Friday, February 10, 2006 - link
You guys need to use the exact same frame as an example for all cadence tests. Not doing so can invalidate your test.