Intel's Ivy Bridge: An HTPC Perspective
by Ganesh T S on April 23, 2012 12:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- Intel
- HTPC
- Ivy Bridge
One of the main reasons for HTPC purists to override the Intel integrated GPUs was the lack of a proper 23.976 Hz refresh rate. Till Clarkdale, the Intel GPUs refreshed the display at 24 Hz when set to 23 Hz. When Sandy Bridge was launched, it was discovered that the 23 Hz setting could be activated and made to function as intended if UAC was disabled. With v2372 drivers, the disabling of UAC became unnecessary. While this didn't result in perfect 23.976 Hz (locked around 23.972 Hz), it was definitely much better than the earlier scenario.
How does Ivy Bridge fare? The short story is that the behaviour on the P8H77-M Pro board is very similar to Sandy Bridge. As the screenshot below shows, the refresh rate is quite stable around 23.973 Hz. This is as good as the bad AMD and NVIDIA GPU cards.
The good news is that Intel is claiming that this issue is fully resolved in the latest production BIOS on their motherboard. This means that BIOS updates to the current boards from other manufacturers should also get the fix. Hopefully, we should be able to independently test and confirm this soon.
It is not only the 23 Hz setting which is off the mark by a small amount. Other refresh rates also suffer similar problems (with videos played back at that frame rate dropping a frame every 5 minutes or so). The gallery below shows some of the other refresh rates that we tested.
Another aspect we found irritating with Intel's GPU control panel is the custom resolution section. Intel seems very reliant on EDID and doesn't allow the user to input any frequency not supported by the display. Our testbed display (a Sony Bravia KDL46EX720) doesn't indicate PAL compatibility in its EDID information. I was able to play back PAL videos with matched refresh rates using the Vision 3D (NVIDIA GT 425M) as well as the AMD 7750. However, Intel's control panel wouldn't allow me to set up 50 Hz as the display refresh rate. It is possible that an EDID override might help, but we can't help complaining about Intel's control panel not being as user friendly as NVIDIA's (despite the availability of a custom resolutions section in the control panel).
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ganeshts - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
The FSE mode performed visibly worse for me compared to FSW in the few cases that I tried. I have got the rest of the settings that Andrew @ MR used. I may try it and see if it improves things. My aim was to get madVR to render without any dropped frames, and I was able to get that at DDR3-1600 (which is what Andrew used too) for almost all the clips I had (except 720p60, which I didn't try till yesterday).satish0072001 - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
Video decoding and rendering benchmarksCan you provide the learning guide how you've got those scores? It will be very helpful for some of us... I know about hqv score.. but this one is new to me.. kindly help :)
From where can I get these benchmarks if i have to compare my existing system with the IVB results?
LuckyKnight - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
In the article there is a promise of a BIOS update to fix the 23.97Hz issue. Wasn't something similar also promised for sandy bridge in the same article over a year ago!! That never happened did it. I want to build a HTPC already!ganeshts - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
Well, something did happen with SNB.. they got it to 23.972 Hz :) If you think about it, video cards with AMD and NVIDIA GPUs also end up in the 23.974 - 23.978 range, and only very rarely do I actually see a GPU outputting exactly 23.976023976 Hz.If Intel gets between 23.974 - 23.978 in a stable manner, I will consider the matter closed.
Shaggie - Thursday, April 26, 2012 - link
Is there still the problem like with SB that the driver puts color space to limited range when connecting to the tv with HDMI and resets it with every refresh rate switch/reboot with the integrated graphics?Stabgotham - Monday, April 30, 2012 - link
Is there a point to getting an H77 board with Ivy Bridge if all you are using it for is as an HTPC (sans overclock)? I can't tell what the benefit would be to justify the price increase.crisliv - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
Nice article! As always.About the note:
"The good news is that Intel is claiming that this issue is fully resolved in the latest production BIOS on their motherboard. This means that BIOS updates to the current boards from other manufacturers should also get the fix. Hopefully, we should be able to independently test and confirm this soon."
What does it mean exactly? Does it mean that this BIOS update should get refresh rate closer to the 23.976 than it was in your test? And "on their motherboard" - does it mean that this BIOS update is for Intel MB only?
True that in AMD and nVidia the out of the box refresh rate for 23 is never precisely 23.976, but the custom timings on nVidia allows you to get closer to is. There is no custom timing settings on the HD4000, right?
LuckyKnight - Thursday, June 14, 2012 - link
Do we have an update regarding 23.967hz?theboyknowsclass - Tuesday, July 24, 2012 - link
it's been a while, and couldn't find any follow upHdale85 - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
I've been looking at an Ivy Bridge setup with the H77/Z77 chipset but I can't find any information about the audio support? Can it bitstream TrueHD and DTS-HD tracks? The older chipsets do it so I would find it strange that the new ones don't, but I don't see it mentioned on any of the new boards or in the intel information.