AMD 780G: Preview of the Best Current IGP Solution
by Gary Key on March 10, 2008 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Test Setup
The Gigabyte GA-MA780GM-S2H was selected as our AMD 780G platform representative today. AMD provided this board for the press kits as it is one of the most feature laden 780G boards in the market, and Gigabyte has ensured widespread availability over the next couple of weeks. The board we are using is an actual retail kit purchased to guarantee our testing results are representative of product in the retail channel. To be honest, the retail board performed identically to our review sample during testing, so that should put any thoughts about cherry-picked samples to rest.
| Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H Testbed | |
| Processor | AMD Athlon 64 X2 4850E Dual-core, 2.5GHz, 2 x 512KB L2 Cache, 12.5x Multiplier |
| CPU Voltage | 1.250V |
| Cooling | AMD Retail |
| Power Supply | Seasonic SS-430GB |
| Memory | OCZ PC2-6400 ATI Edition (4x1GB) |
| Memory Settings | DDR2-800, 4-4-4-12 1.90V |
| Video Cards | On-board HD3200 |
| Video Drivers | AMD 8.3 |
| Hard Drive | Samsung HD501LJ |
| Optical Drives | Sony BDU-X10S |
| Case | Silverstone SG03 |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit |
| . | |
| ASUS P5E-VM HDMI Testbed | |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo E2200 Dual-core, 2.20GHz, 1MB L2 Cache, 800FSB, 11x Multiplier |
| CPU Voltage | 1.250V |
| Cooling | Intel Retail |
| Power Supply | Seasonic SS-430GB |
| Memory | OCZ PC2-6400 ATI Edition (4x1GB) |
| Memory Settings | DDR2-800, 4-4-4-12 1.90V |
| Video Cards | On-board X3500 |
| Video Drivers | Intel 15.8 |
| Hard Drive | Samsung HD501LJ |
| Optical Drives | Sony BDU-X10S |
| Case | Silverstone SG03 |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit |
| . | |
| ASUS M3N78-EMH HDMI Testbed | |
| Processor | AMD Athlon 64 X2 4850E Dual-core, 2.5GHz, 2 x 512KB L2 Cache, 12.5x Multiplier |
| CPU Voltage | 1.250V |
| Cooling | AMD Retail |
| Power Supply | CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX |
| Memory | OCZ PC2-6400 ATI Edition (4x1GB) |
| Memory Settings | DDR2-800, 4-4-4-12 2.00V |
| Video Cards | On-board GeForce 8200 |
| Video Drivers | NVIDIA 173.68 |
| Hard Drive | Samsung HD501LJ |
| Optical Drives | Sony BDU-X10S |
| Case | Silverstone SG03 |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit |
| . | |
Our tests today will concentrate on High Definition image quality output and CPU utilization rates. We are currently working on a five-board roundup that will feature 780G boards from Gigabyte, ASUS, J&W, and ECS. We will go into detail about general performance in the areas of gaming, networking, applications, and overclocking in that article.
Based on the 780G’s penchant for HD playback, we figured the natural competitors in this particular segment would be the Intel G35 and NVIDIA GeForce 8200. Fortunately, our retail GeForce 8200 sample just arrived, but we will be using beta drivers with the GeForce 8200. NVIDIA has not updated the drivers since introducing the chipset in January, so our results could change with final release code. In the meantime, we will pit the 780G against the G35 with publicly available drivers and continue to hope that NVIDIA will answer our requests for a new driver release.
We selected identical components for our three testbeds, with the obvious exception of the motherboard and CPU. Our choice of processors represents the budget-minded user to a certain degree, with AMD’s new 4850e X2 and Intel’s E2200 both retailing for $90. AMD expects to start shipping the 4850e shortly. We ended up having to switch out our Seasonic SS-430GB power supply for a Corsair CMPSU-550VX power supply. The ASUS M3N78-EMH just did not care for our Seasonic power supply during testing as the board would randomly shutdown.
We will provide quad-core results in our follow-up with all three chipsets. One important fact about the 780G and Phenom combination is this combination will perform post-processing on high-definition content. It makes a difference in image quality and fluidity during 1080p playback that we are still trying to capture at this moment.
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yehuda - Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - link
Yes, these are upcoming Intel boards based on the next-gen G45/Q45 chipsets. Thanks for the link.The thing is that dual digital boards could have been here today. The 780G boards from Asus and Gigabyte too have DVI+HDMI on the back panel. My complaint is that they won't let you run both ports at the same time, even though the IGP supports that.
psychobriggsy - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link
It's really good to see AMD doing something well.Well, apart from the southbridge, but at least the USB2 performance issues are fixed, and otherwise most people will never notice the few differences.
Great chipset for HTPC though. Here's hoping to see what a few more driver revisions can do!
samivesusu - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcbGV6Pfb6Q">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcbGV6Pfb6Qgoinginstyle - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link
Thanks for the image comparisons. I think it is about time that somebody showed HD images from actual titles instead of quicktime trailers. Looking forward to the roundup but mainly more image comparisons and quad-core results for the boards. Is a Q6600 on the G35 going to make the stutter/judder problem go away for h.264 titles? Any chance of audio tests with the boards?TheJian - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link
Why would you run a quadcore without a REAL video card? You're missing the whole point of this chipset in that case. Which is HTPC market and the CHEAPO CPU market playing games. This is the best HTPC chipset out there. You can run a SEMPRON 1.8ghz chip as TomsHardware showed a few days ago. That's a SINGLE CORE chip. No need for Dual cores they tested here. IF you have the money for a quad core surely you have $190 for a 8800GT. Why would I want Integrated graphics with a quad core?Ajax9000 - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
Well, one reason is that IGP-to-HDMI is currently the only way to get better than AC3-class digital audio out of an HTPC (due to the lack of OS kernel-level protected audio path for user accessible buses).... which highlights the strange design of the 780G -- the Southbridge can do Intel HD Audio, but the Northbridge is limited to AC3-class audio.
sprockkets - Thursday, March 13, 2008 - link
Or as mentioned L 2.1. Is there anyone that actually notices the difference in audio quality?Hey, I wish someone also tested how the Intel nVidia 7xxx series chipset does. Since it has only one memory channel, it must make it all suck.
Gary Key - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
I have tested this board with a Sempron 64 3400+ and did not have the same results as Tom's with our hardware and driver setup. I am still working on the numbers but the H.264 (AVC) playback experience was not that pleasurable with our video titles. Yes, playback was possible but any system level requests or bitrate spikes above 40Mbps resulted in judder or stuttering. We will look at the lowest common hardware denominator from a CPU/GPU viewpoint in an HTPC focused article next month. We just shipped a 780G board to our Linux editors to test. Hopefully, we can have some initial results early next month.goinginstyle - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
It might be the fact that I can afford a Q6600 or Phenom by not buying a separate video card. The whole point of having a quad is to setup a encoding system that will not take 14 hours to encode a single movie like my Celeron took. I wish this chipset was available for the Intel cpus but I have to admit that my gigabyte 780g board with a 9500 Phenom is working very well right now. After reading about the post processing information, I am glad I bought a phenom. Now I wonder if a Q6600/G35 would have been better if that combo does not choke on AVC materials.