AMD 780G: Preview of the Best Current IGP Solution
by Gary Key on March 10, 2008 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
H.264 Video Quality - Cars
One of our favorite movies last year was Cars from Disney / PIXAR. It may be a kid-oriented movie but who can resist fast cars and a love story to boot. This movie offers bitrate levels that average 14.1 Mb/s to 31.9 Mb/s. In our particular test scene, the Hudson Hornet is in the pit lanes acting as crew chief. This image provides an array of colors and contrast opportunities for dissection.
 780G – Click to Enlarge |
 G35 – Click to Enlarge |
 GeForce 8200 – Click to Enlarge |
The differences in the images are small but the GeForce 8200 appears to have slightly deeper colors along with a very slight edge in sharpness that we will discuss shortly. The reference image was in between the G35 and 780G, but even that decision was a tossup in our opinion. However, our test audience voted differently than the reference image with 4 votes in favor of the GeForce 8200, 3 for the G35, and 1 for the 780G.
This is one title that benefits from NVIDIA's new HD Dynamic Contrast and Color enhancements that will vary contrast ratios on the fly while enforcing a slightly stronger color palette across the image. We find this technology is well suited to animated titles but our opinions differ strongly when it comes to natural images. Almost all of us did not like the contrast enhancement technology but several thought the color enhancement feature offered a better overall picture in most cases.
Even though the G35 platform had an excellent image, there is no comparison in the CPU utilization rates during playback compared to the hardware accelerated decoding offered by NVIDIA and AMD. As expected, the 780G kills the G35 with average utilization rates at 25% compared to 77%. Of course, the G35 does not offer hardware acceleration for decoding H.264 (AVC) content and as such suffers from severe judder at times once the CPU utilizations rates go above 95.
In early Phenom testing with the 8.3 release drivers we noticed CPU utilization rates dropping several percent while image quality improved due to the post-processing capabilities on the HD 3200 when paired with an HT 3.0 capable CPU. We will have those results shortly.
VC1 Video Quality - Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds
We are constantly playing our “Live at Radio City” Blu-ray disc featuring Dave Matthews and Time Reynolds from ATO/RCA/BMG record labels in the labs. It is one of our reference discs for audio quality and besides we just enjoy the music. This disc offers bitrate levels that averaged 13.06 Mb/s to 31.3 Mb/s. In our particular test scene, we see Dave and Tim performing from the right side of the stage. This image provides an array of colors, shadows, and various lighting angles for review.
 780G – Click to Enlarge |
 G35 – Click to Enlarge |
 GeForce 8200 – Click to Enlarge |
The differences in the images are minor but the 780G appears to offer slightly better detail and background image in our estimation. This time, the GeForce 8200 image was faithful to the reference image during playback tests. . Our test audience voted 3 in favor of the GeForce 8200, 3 for the 780G, and 2 for the G35.
This was one test where the opinions differed greatly after watching several minutes of the video. The majority thought the GeForce 8200 offered more “pleasant” tones and brightness control while several thought the 780G provided greater image depth and balanced colors (especially close-ups) that the G35/GeForce 8200 could not.
The 780G and GeForce 8200 offer CPU utilization rates several percent lower in this title than the G35. When using PowerDVD to decode the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio stream, we noticed our average processor utilization rate increased about 5%~9% on average.
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derek85 - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
You certainly don't know anything about multimedia.With a 780G + Phenom + 2ch DDR2-667 or 800 you are getting almost full HDHQV scores; with 8300GS the memory on those cards are severely limited to single channel DDR2-800 and you are not getting ANY HDHQV features, the image quality would be very poor in comparison, and there is no way to remedy that no matter how powerful your CPU is.
You said Phenom is not a good overclocker, and I agree with that, but what you got wrong is the market that 780G is aiming at. At this price point most people would never look at overclocking their PC, heck the average joe out there probably don't even know what's actually inside their computer case. The 780G will make a very good platform for everyday as well as a HTPC, and I'm sure it will be a good pick for OEMs.
derek85 - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
Guess I hit enter button too soon...What I was trying to say is 780G excels in multimedia and will make its way into a damn good budget PC. You are looking at $50-60 saving in an entry level discrete graphics card, and probably $20-30 more on the motherboard at current running price for 780G. 780G will also do just fine in light gaming and usual productivity tasks. It can score 1600+ in 3DMark06, and a 8400GS is not going to do any better than that.
gochichi - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
OK, so I'm excited for AMD. This kind of makes them really feasible again. I mean, for the price of a cheap video card... they throw in a free (and pretty decent) motherboard.I once read that some AMD official (maybe even the president, don't remember) thought that things are so tight in the CPU industry that it's a lot more profitable to make CPU cooling.
Well??? C'MON! There is currently no mainstream HTPC system. AMD could really sell these IF they could sell it even more as a platform. Why leave it up to so-far so-chintzy 3rd parties to make something decent.
What I would like to see is a "genuine" AMD thin case, with a power supply and a new type of AMD chip that comes with a flatter CPU cooler. All I want is space for one harddrive, and one 5.25" drive... make it as tight and slick as possible, and make it relatively affordable. Why not?
I mean, I know it won't happen. But it should. This promises tighter integration, and I believe that making this integration visible to the consumer via a slick AMD-branded case (work with Antec, Lian-Li or just AMD) that draws attention to the near console price that you can now build a system with.
Also, because Vista is so expensive to the people building their own machine. It is critical for them to offer splendid Linux support. If I knew it was plug & play with the next Ubuntu including audio through HDMI... that would sell it to me all over again.
AMD ALMOST has the price-point going on. Vista messes that up, expensive and UNIMPRESSIVE cases/power supplies messes that up as well.
Do you people realize that a Mac Min is currently the cheapest slick-form factor computer available??? How can that be? Apple is EXPENSIVE!?! It doesn't need to be ridiculously small... but slicker than the crap that's available.
Asus makes something like I have in mind but it's ran on Intel and is expensive as all get out.
AMD... give us the humble little platform that could. You're SO close now.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
You know, I reviewed an Aopen MiniPC a long time ago. I burned out one fan in the process of a one month review. Okay, sure, I was stress-testing with Folding@Home, but that still gives me pause. Then I got a new fan, finished the review, and about two months later (without stress testing) the second fan gave out! I'd assume the Mac Mini is doing better than Aopen, since I haven't heard any uproar, but then I don't follow Macs much.More to the point, going *small* has some potential drawbacks. After initially being impressed by SFF and other small systems, I'm pretty much done with them now. uATX is more or less viable, but if you're looking for long-term reliability and don't want overheating and premature part failures, I would stick with a decent ATX case. The uATX stuff just never seems quite as robust after a couple years of use, IMO.
gochichi - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
The Mac Mini wannabe that you're talking about was not what I had in mind. What I am saying is that buying a Mac Mini, and installing Windows Vista for $100.00 is still cheaper than most small/slick form factors.Now, Mac Mini is absurdly small (it's very well executed, and reliable as hell, but the slow harddrive etc is absurd IMHO). I'm suggesting something 8 times as big or so (2 mac minis tall, 4 per layer-ish). Just make it slick. It's REALLY not that hard!
I keep thinking I should just cast an aluminum case from scratch b/c the market is that lame. The few cases that aren't lame are over priced as hell. I suppose the really small HP is fine, (perfect even in terms of size/$/sacrifices). But what about the people that want to buy something from scratch and not undergo armed robbery and chintziness all at the same time.
AMD is unable to take things to the next level. This new vision of "lets not beat Intel in performance/$" COULD work, but it would need a gimmick. They are definitely missing that gimmick although this new chipset came close.
The only actual contribution to the world that this chipset has made is that Intel will beat it (or compete with it) and since Intel has stellar Linux support, better CPUs, and better battery life on laptops etc... that will be good. I really only need so much from a graphics card most of the time, and this 780G covers NEEDS.
phusg - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
What's wrong with Shuttle SFF PC's? Sure the internal PSU crapped out on me after a few years, but I think mine looks pretty good.I do agree with your parent post though that SFF isn't really worth the hassle in a lot of cases. A HTPC is often accompanied by an AV Receiver and TV that are often both easily as big as ATX, so what's the point in going small for the PC component? I'm currently building a recylcled ATX machine as a HTPC to replace my Shuttle and am sure I will love the extra expansion slots, cooler temps and quieter operation. If AMD would just make a decent AGP driver release all will be good again...
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
What's wrong? I suppose it all depends on the TLC you give your computer. I'd *never* recommend overclocking Shuttle - or any other - SFFs. I did that in my early SFF reviews. Some of those systems I kept overclocked (and we're talking mild 10-20% overclocks), and most would fail within a year. Even *without* overclocking, nearly every SFF I've ever used failed in some manner before two years was up.Shuttle did better in this regard than others, but the long-term prospects are pretty poor. I had several motherboards fail (will no longer POST at all). I've had fan controllers fail on at least two units - still usable, but now you need to plug into a regular Molex connector and run the fan at 100%. PSUs have failed on maybe 1/3 of the SFFs I've used (within a two year period - most last at least a year).
The real issue with the above is that all SFFs are proprietary, so when something inevitably *does* fail, you get raped on price a second time. And taking the motherboard or PSU out of an SFF is not nearly as easy as in a uATX/ATX system. If you want the wiring to look nice again - which is actually critical in such a small chassis since it affects airflow - you're looking at many hours of work.
gochichi - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
Building a computer on the cheap, doesn't add up anymore.AMD would be wise to partner up and make a conveniently priced, conveniently sized, platform. Because if the price is right and it's convenient then their performance deficit is not important.
sprockkets - Thursday, March 13, 2008 - link
They could always release a DTX board, like they said over a year ago.panfist - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
Will it be worth waiting for a 790GX? Or if I want that much performance, just go with discrete graphics that's better than hybrid crossfire anyway?What's the best AMD HTPC board that uses discrete graphics?