Discrete HTPC GPU Shootout
by Ganesh T S on June 12, 2011 10:30 PM EST
Before proceeding to the conclusions, let us deal with a couple of topics which didn't fit into any of the preceding sections.
First off, we have some power consumption numbers. In addition to idle power, we also measure the average power consumption of the testbed over a 15 minute interval when playing back a 1080p24 MKV file in MPC-HC.
| HTPC Testbed Power Consumption | ||
| Idle Power Consumption (W) | Playback Power Consumption (W) | |
| HTPC Testbed (Core i5-680) | 56.6 | 67.7 |
| AMD 6450 | 66.4 | 84.9 |
| MSI 6450 | 66.2 | 78.4 |
| Sapphire 6570 | 66.7 | 79.6 |
| NVIDIA GT 430 | 65.7 | 76 |
| MSI GT 520 | 67 | 73.4 |
There is not much to infer from the above power consumption numbers except that the GDDR5 based AMD 6450 needs to be avoided. All the cards idle around the same value. The AMD cards consume slightly more power when playing back the video.
I am sure many readers are also interested in the performance of the GPUs for 3D videos. With the latest PowerDVD and Total Media Theater builds, all the 3D Blu-rays we tried played back OK. Beyond this, we did't feel it necessary to devote time to develop a benchmarking methodology for 3D videos. There is no standardized way to store and transfer 3D videos. 3D Blu-ray ISOs are different from the 3D MKV standard, which, in turn are different from the standards adopted by some of the camcorder manufacturers. In our personal opinion, the 3D ecosystem for HTPCs is still in a mess. It is no secret that NVIDIA has invested heavily in the 3D ecosystem. In addition to the support for 3D movies, they also supply software to view stereoscopic photographs. If you plan on connecting your HTPC to a 3D TV and also plan to invest in 3D cameras or camcorders, the NVIDIA GPUs are a better choice (purely from a support viewpoint). If all you want to do is to play back your 3D Blu-rays any current GPU solution (Intel or AMD or NVIDIA) should be fine. Note that SBS/TAB (side-by-side/Top-and-Bottom) 3D streams (as used in TV broadcasts) are likely to have performance similar to that of the 2D 720p/1080i content.
From a broadcast perspective, MPEG-2 is a mature codec, but it is not very efficient at HD resolutions. H.264 is widely preferred. Current H.264 broadcast encoders take in the raw 4:2:2 10-bit data, but compress them using 8-bit 4:2:0 encoders. Recently, companies have put forward 10-bit 4:2:2 encoding [PDF] as a way to boost the efficiency of H.264 encoding. Unfortunately, none of the GPUs have support for decoding such streams (encoded with profile level High10). Considering that 10-bit 4:2:2 is finding acceptance within the professional community only now, we wouldn't fault the GPU vendors too much. However, x264 has started implementing 10-bit support now, making it possible for users to generate / back-up videos in the new profile. We would like GPU vendors to provide decode support for the High10 AVC profile as soon as possible in their mainstream consumer offerings.
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ganeshts - Thursday, June 16, 2011 - link
PotPlayer apparently doesn't have support for hardware deinterlacing, and has a host of other issues [ Search for PotPlayer in this page and then read the next set of posts about it : http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=20... ].Of course, if it works for you, it is great :) (probably it is a good solution for people watching progressive material only).
The author of LAV CUVID talks in that thread about how renderless DXVA mode works with madVR at the cost of deinterlacing.
Btw, there is no decode of DTS-HD in any open source software now. Both ffdshow and PotPlayer can decode only the core DTS soundtrack. DTS decode has been around for a long time, though.
NikosD - Saturday, June 18, 2011 - link
Indeed, I was referring to progressive material only - interlaced material is rare - but the page you mentioned says PotPlayer has CPU deinterlacing.I don't see where is the problem.
Hardware Deinterlacing is less important - for most users - than Hardware Decoding (DXVA) and less important than the UNIQUE capability of using DXVA + madVR at the same time.
The cost of hardware deinterlacing is nothing compared to the cost of DXVA and madVR.
For the audio part of your answer, I have to say that because of my AVR (Pioneer VSX-920) decoding inside a PC, BluRay, Media Player or any other decoding capable device of multi-channel audio is never an option for me.
I always prefer the bitstreaming solutions for multi-channel audio - as most of the owners of AVR do - like those provided by FFDshow and PotPlayer which both are more than capable of providing them.
That's why I wrote "decoding and pass-through", I had to write "splitting and pass-through".
One last word.
For every piece of software out there, there is always a list of changes, bugs, things to do.
That doesn't mean we don't use it or like it.
PR3ACH3R - Friday, June 17, 2011 - link
@Ganesh T S,This is some NICE work.
In fact, I cannot recall when was the last time I have seen such an in depth article on the HTPC GPU subject in Anandtech.
The balance between the technical issues, the background, & the effort to honestly report all issues known to you in this article, is spot on.
If it is missing something on the issues report, it misses on the ATI/AMD DPC Latency spiking issues.
As this is still remains unnoticed in Anandtech even in this excellent article, here is a link to the AVS post describing it.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=12...
(Ignore some of the discredit attempt posts in this thread, this problem exists to this very day.)
NikosD - Thursday, June 23, 2011 - link
Well, I did some further tests and found out that PotPlayer does have hardware deinterlacing.Have you done any tests by yourself to see if the player supports Hardware Deinterlacing ?
ganeshts - Saturday, June 25, 2011 - link
NikosD, I will definitely try PotPlayer out in the next GPU review. Till now, my knowledge is limited to what is there in the AVSForum thread.flashbacck - Friday, June 24, 2011 - link
I know HTPCs are even more of niche these days than ever, so I appreciate you still doing these tests very much.wpoulson - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
I really appreciate this guide and have been stepping through itI just registered the ASVid.ax file from TMT5 but the filter is not showing up in the External Filter section of MPC-HC. At first I thought it might be because I registered it on the 32 bit side and I'm using 64 bit MPC-HC, so I unregistered the file from System 32 and registered it on the 64 bit side.
I registered it by going to Start>CMD>Cntrl-Shift-Enter and using the "Regsvr32" command to register the file. I put the file along with the checkactivate dll in a folder in the root directory of my C drive and pointed the Regsvr command to the ASVid.ax file. After hitting enter, I received a "dll successfully registered" message.
Can someone help me to get the filter visible for MPC-HC?
A question...While it's considered beta, will the new LAV video decoder do the same thing the arcsoft video decoder does?
Thanks
Warren
stuartm - Friday, January 20, 2012 - link
I am aware the gt 430 is a good choice to work around the infamous WMC 29/59 framerate bug. Can you comment on whether or not the 6570 will stutter or not when playing content with 29/59 framerate problems? A very important consideration for those of us using ceton or HDHR Primes (or the new Hauppauge box) for cable TV Live viewing and record/replay.Thank You
MichaelSan1980 - Saturday, January 21, 2012 - link
I'd use my HTPC for DVD's and BD's only with an Full-HD TV. Since i have a rather strong CPU and wouldn't use Hardware Deinterlacing for DVDs, i wonder, if the GT520 is ~that~ bad, in terms of image quality?drizzo4shizzo - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - link
Old guy here.In the market but I need confirmation that these cards can do component output to "old guy" HDTV.
NONE of the marketing materials suggest that any recent card can.
Meaning they either come with a component video breakout or at least are compatible with a known 3rd party product, and that they can do the RGB -> YUV thing.
This ancient EVGA 7600 GT I have does it... with an "svideo lookalike" 7 pin -> component breakout.
Anyone? Beuller?