AMD Radeon HD 7750 & Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition Review: Evading The Price/Performance Curve
by Ryan Smith & Ganesh T S on February 15, 2012 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- HTPC
- GCN
- Radeon HD 7000
Video Post-Processing: GPU Loading
We saw in our coverage of discrete HTPC GPUs last year that noise reduction loaded up the GPU, and as such, was even disabled in the low end GPUs for want of shader resources. Starting with this review, we are planning to tabulate GPU usage under various post processing scenarios instead of running decoder benchmarks. GPU-Z gives us the necessary data for this purpose.
A 1080i60 H.264 clip (same as the one used in the discrete HTPC GPU article last year) was decoded with the LAV Video Decoder (DXVA2 Copy-Back mode) using EVR-CP as a renderer in GraphStudio Next's Decoder Performance section. Various post-processing options were turned on and off in CCC and the GPU usage recorded in each case.
| Video Post Processing GPU Usage: 1080i60 H.264 | |
| AMD Radeon HD 7750 (1GB GDDR5) / Catalyst 12.1 | |
| LAV Video Decoder DXVA2 (Copy-Back) v0.46 / EVR-CP | |
| Post Processing Algorithm | GPU Load |
| No Video Post Processing | 19% |
| Vector Adaptive Deinterlacing + Pulldown Detection | 25% |
| Edge Enhancement | 22% |
| Noise Reduction | 48% |
| Dynamic Contrast and Colour | 25% |
| All Post Processing / 'Enforce Smooth Video Playback' Disabled | 62% |
We also put some Full SBS / Full TAB 3D clips (which are basically 2 x HD resolution) through the same process. Those progressive clips resulted in around 70% of the GPU being loaded with all the post processing steps enabled.
It is not yet possible to use the madVR renderer from within GraphStudio Next, but, in future HTPC / HTPC GPU reviews, you can expect to find similar benchmarking with the madVR renderer (now that it is possible to use madVR along with hardware accelerated decode for AMD GPUs also). That said, we see that up to 62% of the GPU is loaded using just EVR-CP. It is not clear how much room is left for madVR processing, and we hope to address that question in future reviews.
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Articuno - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Kepler really, really needs to come out soon, and I'm saying this as an AMD fan.Malih - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Exactly, I'm a fan of AMD myself, and I can't wait for Kepler, AMD needs a kick in the (you know what)DimeDeviL - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
"Theoretically the 5770 has a 5% compute performance advantage over the 5770."eminus - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
uhhh really? same card performs better hehehehetynopik - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
lobbing off -> lopping offmattgmann - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
I feel like reviewers were blinded by performance with the 7970/7950 cards. They offer the same lack of competitive pricing as these lower end cards. The 7950 can be compared directly (in price and performance) to the Nvidia GTX 580, a card that was available a year ago.I'm still rocking a pair of 4870s that set me back ~$400 a few years back. To get a substantial performance upgrade, I'd have to spend $450 on a 7950 today. Where is the value in that? Yes, power consumption and features are important but are tertiary to raw performance in almost every user scenario when it comes to gaming.
To say the least, the lack of competitive pricing between nvidia and amd currently smells a little fishy.....it wouldn't be the first time there was price fixing in the graphics card industry.
maniac5999 - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
I'm convinced that the pricing for 4870s in late 2008/early 2009 was the sweet point to buy. Yes, power consumption sucks, but other than that, a card that cost me $160 then, is pretty competitive with a card that costs $120 today. I think we may have just lucked out with the 4870s, and may need to wait until at least Kepler, if not 8XXX to upgrade.chizow - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Just be careful not to set expectations on the 4870's pricing for 2 reasons:1) 4870 pricing was a mistake imo. AMD will say it was a calculated one in fluff pieces like the RV770 story and it was true in some degree that AMD needed to recover mindshare/marketshare and consumer confidence after the R600 debacle and a weak performing RV670. Still, when you set your single-GPU flagship at $300 and your second SKU at $200, there's not much room to go down on pricing.
2) Late 2008 early 2009 was the height of the recession. Wall Street, Real Estate, Auto Industry, all that. Nvidia and AMD were feeling it too and got involved in a highly publicized price war. That's why you saw "new" high-end performance parts like the 4890 and GTX 275 launching for $230-$250 that occupy the $350+ market today, with cards like the 4870 and GTX 260c216 selling at tremendous value for $150 or less.
Its obvious AMD is doing its best to correct their 4870 price mistake over the last few years, but with the overall performance of Southern Islands stack, the 7-series was the wrong time to do it. They should've just stuck to their old pricing scheme or at worst, matched Nvidia's pricing ($500, $380) with their Tahiti parts. Then you might see the rest of the stack priced reasonably.
Zoomer - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Yeah, at this point of the business cycle, it sucks to have to buy anything. Everything is expensive due to all the capacity cuts.Recessions are good (for buying things, cars, houses, whatever). Btw: Housing is an anomaly due to efforts to stop/slow the process.
Oxford Guy - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Recessions are good for the rich... not so good for everyone else.