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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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.