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- SPIDER-MAN 3
One of last year’s trilogy blockbusters came from Columbia Pictures featuring the MARVEL inspired SPIDER-MAN 3. This movie offers bitrate levels that averaged 14.9 Mb/s to 35.3 Mb/s. In our particular test scenes, we have a close up of Spider-Man and another screenshot of the police on the street from a top down angle. Both screenshots offer an opportunity to compare color, facial details, and black levels.
 780G – Click to Enlarge |
 G35 – Click to Enlarge |
 GeForce 8200 – Click to Enlarge |
 780G – Click to Enlarge |
 G35 – Click to Enlarge |
 GeForce 8200 – Click to Enlarge |
We see small differences in the screenshots, but certainly think in the first screenshot that the 780G and/or GeForce 8200 had better color saturation and details than the G35. The second screenshot is a tossup depending on whether you like the softer look of the 780G or slightly more detail and sharpness in the G35 picture. The GeForce 8200 did not offer as warm skin tones in our opinion but otherwise had the same overall image as the 780G. Our test audience voted 4 times for the 780G, 3 for the GeForce 8200, and 1 for the G35 in the Spider-Man image. The 780G garnered four votes in the police screen shot with the GeForce 8200 and G35 each receiving 2. Both 780G images were slightly closer to the reference image than the G35 with the GeForce 8200 placing in-between both platforms.
The 780G and GeForce 8200 put a major hurt on the G35 with average CPU utilization rates around 24% compared to 84%. The GeForce 8200 had slight increases in the processor utilization rates when implementing LPCM 5.1 or Dolby True HD decoding through PowerDVD Ultra 7.3. LPCM 5.1 audio bitrates averaged 4608 Kbps with Dolby True HD ranging from 2640~4608 Kbps depending on the scene.
During heavy action sequences, the G35 processor utilization rates were constantly above 90% and we did experience some judder at times if not outright pausing. If we changed our audio stream to Dolby TrueHD or 5.1 LPCM, the CPU utilization rates stayed at 97%~100% during the action sequences with average rates being around 87%. Actually, judder was no different from the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio stream so we would suggest sticking with the higher audio quality streams but suggest a processor such as an E6750 for a better viewing experience.
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greenfuzion - Thursday, April 17, 2008 - link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l2e0mf3CcA">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l2e0mf3CcASchugy - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
The new AMD chipset is a good choice for a MythTV frontend and it will play normal mpeg2 tv flawlessly.But I won't need any HD capabilities because video players like kaffeine or mplayer won't support HDCP crap or any hardware accelleration.
With the lousy closed source nVIDIA linux driver not supporting pureview I can't even watch the unencrypted EA Burnout Paradise demo video fullscreen (VIDEO: [avc1] 1280x720 24bpp) without any performance problems. But I think a Sempron 3000+ SOA and a 7600GT should be enough for this resolution far away from full HD.
I won't spend any money for HD hardware or HD content because there's no sense in it.
najames - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
Since these boards are intended as media PCs, I think you should be doing thorough testing of the onboard LAN. My Biostar TA690G does a decent job on gigabit, my Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H sucked at sending, ok in receiving. Intel Pro1000 PCI-e x1 replacement card did a lot better on the Gigabyte, although I still question the boards throughput. I have done a LOT of LAN testing on Linux for a building server. This kind of stuff needs to be checked, writing to a single WD 640GB drive.ftp> put mint.iso
local: mint.iso remote: mint.iso
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Ok to send data.
226 File receive OK.
722104320 bytes sent in 6.41 secs (109965.8 kB/s)
ftp> quit
yehuda - Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - link
Gigabyte's 690G and 690V boards suck at network performance because they use a PCI controller as upposed to a PCI Express controller in most other boards.Fortunately, the GA-MA78GM-S2H is free from this drawback. You can check the network results here:
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14261/13">http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14261/13
That said, I can't explain your comment on questionable throughput with the replacement PCI-e card.
rhofmann - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
1080p HD decode is great, but in my experience I've found that the de-interlacing required by 1080i broadcast HD content has been an Achilles heel for HTPC output with integrated graphics.jamawass - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
Never thought I'd see the day when Tomshardware actually published a better review than Anandtech. I don't understand how a review article on AMD 780g ends with a paragraph on an Intel chipset talking about strengths in"office applications", heck a igp chipset 10 yrs ago was good in office applications.This is the best IGP chipset currently and the article should have stated that categorically instead of using lame " AMD got it almost right". What use is lpcm audio when the image is paused and juddering on your screen?
Power consumption, sound use are all relevant when reviewing a platform like this I just didn't see the empahsis on these in this article.
TheJian - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
I was surprised by TomsHardware too. I haven't put much stock in their site for years (since a ways before they soldout). In the beginning Tom Pabst did an excellent job HIMSELF. But now it's just his name on the site. I expected to read their review over here, and Anandtech's review over at Toms...LOL. Maybe I'll have to start paying more attention to Toms. Jeez, did I say that out loud? Or am I just thinking it... :)Toms review was definitely shooting straight. Totally agree that Audio (any kind not just over HDMI) can't get me to lean towards Intel if the picture sucks to begin with. What's the point in Hi-Def if it looks like crap? OH wait...That's right it still sounds good! LOL. Whatever...
gochichi - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
Refurbished Dell Vostro 400 desktop with a superior Intel Quad chip, Vista Home Premium, 2GB RAM (upgradeable), 160GB HDD, DVD+/-, 8300 GS (which should do just about as well, very very close I imagine), keyboard, mouse and some sense of synergy. Meaning, you get a keyb/mouse/case that match in some way... even if the thing is not particularly small, it's pretty small and high quality looking than most reasonably priced cases.Heck, forget price, only a few cases are passable PERIOD. Vista's pricing even the so-called "OEM" price really messes things up also.
The Vostro mentioned above, which would outperform any Phenom is $459.00 ready to go... already assembled, perfect matches etc.
Before you ask me... why don't I just buy it if I like the deal so much? I just might, I just might is the answer.
Zstream - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
Utter rubish! A Vostro 400 huh?Lets go to dell's site. A Vostro 400 with Intel® Core™2 Duo Proc E4500 (2.20GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800FSB), one gig of ram, dvd-rom, 160gb hard drive...
I would purchase a 780g/tri-core htpc over this any day of the week.
gochichi - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
Did you ever consider that you can't find the unit I'm talking about anymore.I said nothing about a 2.2Ghz Duo anything. I was talking about a QUAD 2.4 Ghz with a small HDD, 2GB of RAM and a remedial video card (that would perform about as well as the 780G, maybe a little better it was a 8300 GS).
Dell WAS selling 2.4Ghz quad refurbs as duos... but I don't know if that's changed.
All of this is really irrelevant. I guess the broader point is that building a computer from scratch blows for a number of reasons (unless you're really going to spend in top end stuff).
1. Getting a decent case/PSU for under $100.00 is a feat, and even then it's too much.
2. Vista or any other MS system is over priced.
About the 780G, my first reaction was: "it's only $70.00" and I started going from there. But you know what? At the end of the day, you're really saving $30.00 on what a remedial 8400 GS would cost. $30.00 when you're building from scratch just isn't that much. AMD has provided a decent part for OEMs though. Hopefully they can deliver.
As for the Vostro 400 w/ Quad and Vista Home Premium for $469.00 hopefully I'll be able to find it again and buy it. $40.00 upgrades it to 4GB of RAM and you can actually put any video card you want in that thing (just one though obviously). So 9600GT down the line, or wait it out and get something next gen.
Part of the advantage of building from scratch is overclocking. But no matter how much you overclock a Phenom, it's still pretty much not as good as a basic 2.4Ghz intel Quad. Those things have been around forever. Intel is totally yawning as they pummel AMD. Overclocking also means even pricier parts and headache and I'm just not seeing how you could possibly beat the bang/$ of the Vostro.
Now, that's me. You want to build a system based AMD and this chipset, it sounds like fun... but it doesn't sound smart.