AMD's Radeon HD 5870: Bringing About the Next Generation Of GPUs
by Ryan Smith on September 23, 2009 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Race is Over: 8-channel LPCM, TrueHD & DTS-HD MA Bitstreaming
It's now been over a year since I first explained the horrible state of Blu-ray audio on the PC. I'm not talking about music discs, but rather the audio component of any Blu-ray movie. It boils down to this: without an expensive sound card it's impossible to send compressed Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio streams from your HTPC to an AV receiver or pre-processor. Thankfully AMD, Intel and later NVIDIA gave us a stopgap solution that allowed HTPCs, when equipped with the right IGP/GPU, to decode those high-definition audio streams and send them uncompressed over HDMI. The feature is commonly known as 8-channel LPCM support and without it all high end HTPC users would be forced into spending another $150 - $250 on a sound card like the Auzentech HomeTheater HD I just recently reviewed.
For a while I'd heard that ATI was dropping 8-channel LPCM support from RV870 because of cost issues. Thankfully, those rumors turned out to be completely untrue. Not only does the Radeon HD 5870 support 8-channel LPCM output over HDMI like its predecessor, but it can now also bitstream Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. It is the first and only video card to be able to do this, but I expect others to follow over the next year.
The Radeon HD 5870 is first and foremost a card for gamers, so unless you're building a dual-purpose HTPC, this isn't the one you're going to want to use. If you can wait, the smaller derivatives of the RV870 core will also have bitstreaming support for TrueHD/DTS-HD MA. If you can't and have a deep enough HTPC case, the 5870 will work.
In addition to full bitstreaming support, the 5870 also features ATI's UVD2 (Universal Video Decoder). The engine allows for complete hardware offload of all H.264, MPEG-2 and VC1 decoding. There haven't been many changes to the UVD2 engine; you can still run all of the color adjusting post-processing effects and accelerate a maximum of two 1080p streams at the same time.
ATI claims that the GPU now supports Blu-ray playback/acceleration in Aero mode, but I found that in my testing the UI still defaulted to basic mode.
To take advantage of the 5870's bitstreaming support I had to use a pre-release version of Cyberlink's PowerDVD 9. The public version of the software should be out in another week or so. To enable TrueHD/DTS-HD MA bitstreaming you have to select the "Non-decoded high-definition audio to external device" option in the audio settings panel:
With that selected the player won't attempt to decode any audio but rather pass the encoded stream over HDMI to your receiver. In this case I had an Integra DTC-9.8 on the other end of the cable and my first test was Bolt, a DTS-HD MA title. Much to my amazement, it worked on the first try:
No HDPC errors, no strange player issues, nothing - it just worked.
Next up was Dolby TrueHD. I tried American History X first but the best I could get out of it was Dolby Digital. I swapped in Transformers and found the same. This ended up being an issue with the early PowerDVD 9 build, similar to issues with the version of the player needed for the Auzentech HomeTheater HD. Switching audio output modes a couple of times seemed to fix the problem, I now had both DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD bitstreaming from the Radeon HD 5870 to my receiver.
One strange artifact during my testing was the 5870 apparently delivered 1080i output to my JVC RS2 projector. I'm not exactly sure what went wrong here as 1080p wasn't an issue on any other display I used. I ran out of time before I could figure out the cause of the problem but I expect it's an early compatibility issue.
I can't begin to express how relieving it is to finally have GPUs that implement a protected audio path capable of handling these overly encrypted audio streams. Within a year everything from high end GPUs to chipsets with integrated graphics will have this functionality.
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SiliconDoc - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
Oh really ? Now wait a minute, spin master. When the site here whined about "paper launch" it was Derek who brought up a two or three year old nvidia card, and cried and whined about it. Then speculated the GTX275 was paper, and then "a phantom card".Well, that didn't happen.... no apologies about it ever either.
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The PAPER launches of late are ATI ATI ATI ! ! !
We have the 4770, and now this one !
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Gee, when ATI BLOWS IT, we suddenly talk in vague terms about "the companies" having "papery launches" as " the general rule of thumb of how it's done.." - and that makes us "not a fan boy!??!"
R0FLMAO !!!!
Yes, of course, since the red ati is bleeding paper launches and the last one from nvidia one can actually cite is YEARS AND YEARS ago, yes, of course, you're correct, it's "unnamed companies in the multiple" that "do it"....
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I swear to god, I cannot even believe the massive brainwashing that is a gigantic pall all over the place.
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If I'm WRONG, please be kind, and tell me what nvidia paper launches I missed.... PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
Genx87 - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Is\was a good idea to shoot for as this is most certainly what Nvidia is going to attempt to achieve. But I am a bit disappointed this care rarely achieved it.I do like angle independent AF though. Should be interesting to see what Nvidia brings to the table. But kind of like the CPU situation(i5) I am kind of meh. But will say this has more potential compared to its predecessor than the i5 series does compared to Core 2 Duo.
SiliconDoc - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
I thought that was just great, those pretty pictures, and then I get to reading. I see the 4890 and SQUARES. I see the GTX285, with CIRCLES and an outer rounded octagon.Then the 5870- and it's "perfectly round" angle independent algorithm, but I still see some distortions.
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So I get to reading and am told "the 4890 and 285 are virtually the same". I guess the wheel was first made square, and rolled as well as when it became round. No chance the reviewer could tell the truth and remark that NVidia has the best, until today.. NOPE can't do that!
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Then, of course, the celebration for the "perfection" of the 5870 and ATI's superb success in the "round" category...
EXCEPT:
We get to the actual implementations and NO PERCIEVED DIFFERENCE IS VISUALLY THERE. It cannot be seen. The article even states they searched in vain for some game to show the difference. LOL
All that extra effort to for pete sakes show that ATI superiority...all WASTED EFFORT, but for red roosters I'm certain it was a very exciting quest, titillating, gee a change to take down big green...
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So bottom line is IT'S A BIG FAT ZERO, even the older, worse ati implementation is apparently "non distinguishable".
It is remarked that NVidia doesn't "officially" support this method in game, and of course, after much red rooster effort, one finds out why.
THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE in visual quality. Another phantom red "win".
Another reason NVidia makes money (why waste it on worthless crap in developement that makes no difference), while ATI does not.
Yeah, that was so cool.
So happy the "mental ideation of perfection in the card for ati fans" was furthered. ROFL
Dante80 - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
A quick question. Why is there no 5850 review available atm?1> Was there a separate NDA for the 2 cards?
2> Were there no sample cards given by AMD to reviewers?
3> Did AMD ask reviewers to postpone said reviews due to market supply problems/glitches?
4> Was this a strategy decision by AMD, for marketing or other reasons?
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
AMD only provided us with 2 5870s, the 5850 was not sampled. 5800 series cards are in short supply, even for reviewers.Dante80 - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
Thank you for the prompt answer, that was what I was guessing too. Cheers...^^Spoelie - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
To get enough 5870 cards in the channel for a hard launch, they used every possible die.There are probably not enough harvested dies to create the 5850 line just yet. And they're not gonna use fully functional ones that can go in a 5870 when supply for them is tight already.
Once the 5850 is launched, demand for them is up and yields matured, they'll have to use fully functional dies to keep supply up, but now they're building up inventory for a hard launch during the coming weeks.
SiliconDoc - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Uhh, just a minute there feller. The SOFT or PAPER LAUNCH has already hit, the big LAUNCH DATE is today....Newegg is a big ZERO available... (one Powercolor was there 30 mins ago, the other 3 listed are NOT avaailable, I watched them appear last night).
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So, when Ati has a "hard launch" they get "many weeks after the launch date" to "ramp up production" and "fill the need".
ROFLMAO
I was here when this site and the red roosters whined about Nvidia and appear launches, and I believe it was the GTX275 that was predicted to be PAPER (not very long ago in fact) here, and the article EVEN SPECULATED IT WAS A PHANTOM CARD.
All the red roosters piled on, but.... the card was available on launch, it wasn't a PHANTOM, and all that bs was quickly forgotten and shoved into the memory hole like it never happened...
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Oh, but when it's ATI and not Nvidia, the 4770 can remain almost pure paper near forever, and this one, golly it can be 95% paper and it's just " getting ready for a hard launch" WEEKS BEYONDS the launch date!
ROFLMAO
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No bias here?!? "Where's da' bias?!?!" said the red rooster (to the green goblin)...
Give me a break.
chrnochime - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link
Just because you can't find it in the states doesn't mean it's a fake launch. And fake launch? What are you a 12 year old or something? You're like the nvidia version of snakeoil. Just go play with your nvidia part m'kay ?SiliconDoc - Sunday, September 27, 2009 - link
Well, since you insulted, and mischaracterized, I came across the reminder about the 4870 paper launch.Yes, that's correct, this is how ATI rolls, a big fat lying launch date, a piddle of a few cards, then wait a couple weeks or a month.
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" The cards are fast, but as many pointed out HD 5870 is not faster than Geforce GTX 295, which is something that many have expected. Radeon 5850 will also start selling in October time, but remember, last summer when ATI launched 4870, the card was almost impossible to buy and weeks if not months after, the availability finally improved. "
http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15643/1/">http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15643/1/
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Like I've kept saying, the bias is so bad... I keep discovering more big fat ati blunderous moves, that are instead ascribed to imaginarily to Nvida.
Thanks for the incorrect whining, anger, and standard PC e-mindless chatroom repeated, non original, heard ten thousand times, brainless insult, it actually helped me.
I learned ATI blew their 4870 launch with paper lies as well.
You're a great help friend.