AMD 780G: Preview of the Best Current IGP Solution
by Gary Key on March 10, 2008 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The HD HQV benchmark is developed and provided by Silicon Optix. Our review of HD HQV is located here. Like the standard HQV Benchmark, the high-definition counterpart contains video tests and patterns that determine the quality of a product’s HD video signal processing. A set of five tests evaluate quality factors such as HD Noise Reduction, Video and Film resolution loss tests, as well a test for “jaggies”. We disable Aero capability and set the driver options to optimal settings.
Unfortunately, optimizing the drivers and PowerDVD 7.3 can and will make a difference in the tests where de-interlacing is important.
In addition, although this test is standardized to some degree, it can be subjective at times. This depends upon how strict you abide by the guideline sheet although even it differs at times with the video example tests.
In our first test, it is obvious that Image quality of the Intel G35 and NVIDIA GeForce 8200 is not up to par with the 780G with the Film Resolution test making the difference in the scores. To be honest, the 780G was on the verge of failing this particular test (subjective opinion) without optimizing the settings in the CCC panel. We also optimized quality settings in both the NVIDIA and Intel control panels to be consistent but did not notice any real changes in this test. All three boards were close to scoring 7 points in the HD noise reduction test but failed the flower section of the test while the sailboat test did show some slight improvements.
AMD is working on further enhancements in the Catalyst 8.4 drivers for the X2 processors to improve this situation and the jaggies test. With a Phenom installed, we see the advantages of the post-processing engine coming into play. Additional tuning is also available in the 8.3 drivers with the ability to turn edge enhancement off and on. We will have the standard HQV results in our roundup. The 8.3 drivers allow the 780G with a Phenom to score 122 out of 130 points and 113 with the 4850e.
Overall, we do not put much faith into this test currently as our eight person panel seemed to have a different opinion on just about every score. In fact, only three of our esteemed colleagues were in agreement with each other on test scores for each board and those were different (higher) than our published results.
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- Monday, March 10, 2008 - link
Where is the discussion of this chipset as an HTPC? Just a tidbit here and there? I thought that was a major selling point here. With a single core sempron 1.8ghz being enough for an HTPC which NEVER hits 100% cpu usage (see tomshardware.com) you don't need a dual core and can probably hit 60w in your HTPC! Maybe less. Why was this not a major topic in this article? With you claiming the E8300/E8200 in your last article being a HTPC dreamers chip shouldn't you be talking about how low you could go with a sempron 1.8ghz? Isn't that the best HTPC combo out there now? No heat, super low cost running it all year long etc (NOISELESS with a proper heatsink).Are we still supposed to believe your article about the E8500? While I freely admit chomping at the bit to buy an E8500 to Overclock the crap out of it (I'm pretty happy now with my e4300@3.0 and can't wait for 3.6ghz with e8500, though it will go further probably who needs more than 3.6 today for gaming), it's a piece of junk for an HTPC. Overly expensive ($220? for e8300 that was recommended) compared to a lowly Sempron 1.8 which I can pick up for $34 at newegg. With that kind of savings I can throw in a 8800GT in my main PC as a bonus for avoiding Intel. What's the point in having an HTPC where the cpu utilization is only 25%? That's complete OVERKILL. I want that as close to 100% as possible to save me money on the chip and then on savings all year long with low watts. With $200 savings on a cpu I can throw in an audigy if needed for special audio applications (since you whined about 780G's audio). A 7.1channel Audigy with HD can be had for $33 at newegg. For an article totally about "MULTIMEDIA OUTPUT QUALITIES" where's the major HTPC slant?
sprockkets - Thursday, March 13, 2008 - link
Dude, buy a 2.2ghz Athlon X2 chip for like $55. You save what, around $20 or less with a Sempron nowadays?QuickComment - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
It's not 'whining' about the audio. Sticking in a sound card from Creative still won't give 7.1 sound over HDMI. That's important for those that have a HDMI-amp in a home theatre setup.TheJian - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
That amp doesn't also support digital audio/Optical? Are we just talking trying to do the job within 1 cable here instead of 2? Isn't that kind of being nit picky? To give up video quality to keep in on 1 cable to me is unacceptable (hence I'd never "lean" towards G35 as suggested in the article). I can't even watch if the video sucks.QuickComment2 - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
No, its not about 1 cable instead of 2. SPDIF is fine for Dolby digital and the like, ie compressed audio, but not for 7.1 uncompressed audio. For that, you need HDMI. So, this is a real deal-breaker for those serious about audio.JarredWalton - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link
I don't know about others, but I find video encoding is something I do on a regular basis with my HTPC. No sense storing a full quality 1080i HDTV broadcast using 16GB of storage for two hours when a high quality DivX or H.264 encode can reduce disk usage down to 4GB, not to mention ripping out all the commercials. Or you can take the 3.5GB per hour Windows Media Center encoding and turn that into 700MB per hour.I've done exactly that type of video encoding on a 1.8GHz Sempron; it's PAINFUL! If you're willing to just spend a lot of money on HDD storage, sure it can be done. Long-term, I'm happier making a permanent "copy" of any shows I want to keep.
The reality is that I don't think many people are buying HTPCs when they can't afford more than a $40 CPU. HTPCs are something most people build as an extra PC to play around with. $50 (only $10 more) gets you twice the CPU performance, just in case you need it. If you can afford a reasonable HTPC case and power supply, I dare say spending $100-$200 on the CPU is a trivial concern.
Single-core older systems are still fine if you have one, but if you're building a new PC you should grab a dual-core CPU, regardless of how you plan to use the system. That's my two cents.
TheJian - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
I guess you guys don't have a big TV. With a 65in Divx has been out of the question for me. It just turns to crap. I'd do anything regarding editing on my main PC with the HTPC merely being a cheap player for blu-ray etc. A network makes it easy to send them to the HTPC. Just set the affinity on one of your cores to vidcoding and I can still play a game on the other. Taking 3.5GB to 700MB looks like crap on a big tv. I've noticed it's watchable on my 46in, but awful on the 65. They look great on my PC, but I've never understood anyone watching anything on their PC. Perhaps a college kid with no room for a TV. Other than that...JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
SD resolutions at 46" (what I have) or 65" are always going to look lousy. Keeping it in the original format doesn't fix that; it merely makes to use more space.My point is that a DivX, x64, or similar encoding of a Blu-ray, HDTV, or similar HD show loses very little in overall quality. I'm not saying take the recording and make it into a 640x360 SD resolution. I'm talking about converting a full bitrate 1080p source into a 1920x1080 DivX HD, x64, etc. file. Sure, there's some loss in quality, but it's still a world better than DVD quality.
It's like comparing a JPEG at 4-6 quality to the same image at 12 quality. If you do a diff, you will find lots of little changes on the lower quality image. If you want to print up a photo, the higher quality is desirable. If you're watching these images go by at 30FPS, though, you won't see much of a loss in overall quality. You'll just use about 1/3 the space and bandwidth.
Obviously, MPEG4 algorithms are *much* more complex than what I just described - which is closer to MPEG2. It's an analogy of how a high quality HD encode compares to original source material. Then again, in the case of HDTV, the original source material is MPEG2 encoded and will often have many artifacts already.
yehuda - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link
Great article. Thanks to Gary and everyone involved! The last paragraph is hilarious.One thing that bothers me about this launch is the fact that board vendors do not support the dual independent displays feature to full extent.
If I understand the article correctly, the onboard GPU lets you run two displays off any combination of ports of your choice (VGA, DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort).
However, board vendors do not let you do that with two digital ports. They let you use VGA+DVI or VGA+HDMI, but not DVI+HDMI. At least, this is what I have gathered reading the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H and Asus M3A78-EMH-HDMI manuals. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
How come tier-1 vendors overlook such a worthy feature? How come AMD lets them get away with it?
Ajax9000 - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
They are appearing. At CeBIT Intel showed off two mini-ITX boards with dual digital.DQ45EK DVI+DVI
DG45FC DVI+HDMI
http://www.mini-itx.com/2008/03/06/intels-eaglelak...">http://www.mini-itx.com/2008/03/06/intels-eaglelak...