Discrete HTPC GPU Shootout
by Ganesh T S on June 12, 2011 10:30 PM ESTFor the purpose of HTPC reviews (in particular, HQV benchmarking for discrete GPUs), we have set up a dedicated testbed with the following configuration.
| HTPC Benchmarking Testbed Setup | |
| Processor | Intel i5-680 CPU - 3.60GHz, 4MB Cache |
| Motherboard | ASUS P7H55D-M EVO |
| OS Hard Drive | Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB |
| Secondary Drive | Kingston SSDNow 128GB |
| Memory | G.SKILL ECO Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) F3-10666CL7D-4GBECO CAS 7-7-7-21 |
| Video Cards | Various |
| Optical Drives | ASUS 8X Blu-ray Drive Model BC-08B1ST |
| Case | Antec VERIS Fusion Remote Max |
| Power Supply | Antec TruePower New TP-550 550W |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate x64 |
| . | |
This is the same configuration that we had for evaluating the GT 430 last fall. Windows 7 was updated to SP1, but that has little bearing on our HTPC benchmarks.
Each hardware configuration has an associated OS image which was created / restored as necessary using Clonezilla. This ensures that we do not end up with conflicting drivers while evaluating GPUs from different companies on the same base testbed. Read on for the results from benchmarking the four candidates with the HQV clips
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jwilliams4200 - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
All the numbers add up correctly now. Thanks for monitoring the comments and fixing the errors!Samus - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Honestly, my Geforce 210 has been chillin' in my HTPC for 2+ years, and works perfectly :)josephclemente - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
If I am running a Sandy Bridge system with Intel HD Graphics 3000, do these cards have any benefit over integrated graphics? What is Anandtech's HQV Benchmark score?I tried searching for scores, but people say this is subjective and one reviewer may differ from another. One site says 196 and another in the low 100's. What does this reviewer say?
ganeshts - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Give me a couple of weeks. I will be getting a test system soon with the HD 3000, and I will do detailed HQV benchmarking in that review too.dmsher99@gmail.com - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
I recently built a HTPC with a core i5-2500k on a ASUS P8H67 EVO with a Ceton InfiniTV cable card. Note that the Intel driver is fundamentally flawed and will destroy a system if patched. See the Intel communities thread 20439 for more details.Besides causing BSOD over HDMI output when patched, the stable versions have their own sets of bugs including a memory bleed when watching some premium content on HD channels that crashed WMC. Intel appears to have 1 part time developer working on this problem but every test river he puts out breaks more than it fixes. Watching the same, content with a system running a NVIDIA GPU and the memory bleed goes away.
In my opinion, second gen SB chips is just not ready for prime time in a fully loaded HTPC.
jwilliams4200 - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
"The first shot shows the appearance of the video without denoising turned on. The second shot shows the performance with denoising turned off. "Heads I win, tails you lose!
ganeshts - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Again, sorry for the slip-up, and thanks for bringing it to our notice. Fixed it. Hopefully, the gallery pictures cleared up the confusion (particularly the Noise Reduction entry in the NVIDIA Control Panel)stmok - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Looking through various driver release README files, it appears the mobile Nvidia Quadro NVS 4200M (PCI Device ID: 0x1056) also has this feature set.The first stable Linux driver (x86) to introduce support for Feature Set D is 270.41.03 release.
=> ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/270.41...
It shows only the Geforce GT 520 and Quadro NVS 4200M support Feature Set D.
The most recent one confirms that they are still the only models to support it.
=> ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/275.09...
ganeshts - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Thanks for bringing it to our notice. When that page was being written (around 2 weeks back), the README indicated that the GT 520 was the only GPU supporting Feature Set D. We will let the article stand as-is, and I am sure readers perusing the comments will become aware of this new GPU.havoti97 - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
So basically the app store's purpose is to attract submissions of ideas for features of their next OS, uncompensated of course. All the other crap/fart apps not worthy are approved and people make pennies of those.