Intel's Haswell - An HTPC Perspective: Media Playback, 4K and QuickSync Evaluated
by Ganesh T S on June 2, 2013 8:15 PM ESTNetwork Streaming Performance - Netflix and YouTube
The move from Windows 7 to Windows 8 as our platform of choice for HTPCs has made Silverlight unnecessary. The Netflix app on Windows 8 supports high definition streams (up to a bit rate of 3.85 Mbps for all ISPs, more if the ISP is Super HD enabled) as well as 5.1-channel Dolby Digital Plus audio on selected titles.
It is not immediately evident whether GPU acceleration is available or not from the OSD messages. However, GPU-Z reported an average GPU utilization of 12% throughout the time that the Netflix app was playing back video. The average power consumption is around 28 W.
Unlike Silverlight, Adobe Flash continues to maintain some relevance right now. YouTube continues to use Adobe Flash to serve FLV (at SD resolutions) and MP4 (at both SD and HD resolutions) streams. YouTube's debug OSD indicates whether hardware acceleration is being used or not.
Windows 8 has plenty of YouTube apps. We chose the Megatube YouTube Player / Downloader which allows for stream selection. For our power measurement experiments, we chose the 1080p MP4 stream.
However, we can't be sure whether hardware acceleration is being used with the app, as there is no debug OSD. However, a look at the power consumption numbers reveal that both approaches consume less than 30 W on an average. The difference in the caching of the stream is also visible in this graph, with the Flash approach preferring to download data in bursts while the app prefers to download the whole stream as quickly as possible. Streaming was done over Wi-Fi.
Comparing these numbers with what was obtained using the i3-3225 in a passive build shows that the Haswell build manages to be more efficient even when active cooling (with one big Antec Skeleton chassis fan and a CPU fan) is employed.
On the image quality front, Haswell doesn't seem to change anything here vs. Ivy Bridge. Performance was acceptable before, and it continues to be so here. The big difference is really the additional power savings.
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mindbomb - Sunday, June 2, 2013 - link
The current version of madvr does support dxva native actually.gevorg - Sunday, June 2, 2013 - link
The near $300 price of i7-4765T is extremely price prohibitive for HTPC use. Majority of users will find AMD's Trinity APUs to be perfect for HTPC job.Also, unless Intel handicapped it, you should be able to downclock any i7 Haswell CPU to be near i7-4765T speed/TDP. This is possible with Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge chips.
meacupla - Sunday, June 2, 2013 - link
the only problem with trinity is the rather limited choice of mITX mobos and rather high power consumption and thermal output, which makes them not ideal for compact HTPCs...Although, granted, for $300 for the CPU alone, I'd much rather buy an xboxone or PS4.
HisDivineOrder - Tuesday, June 4, 2013 - link
You just listed four problems while saying, "the only problem with trinity." That's the real problem with AMD's options. There's like "one problem" for everyone.Spunjji - Tuesday, June 4, 2013 - link
Except for those of us for whom there are none, and/or are prepared to live with limitations to not have to shell out $300 on a CPU.vnangia - Sunday, June 2, 2013 - link
Very true. The SNB low-TDP parts were within spitting distance of their equivalent regular-TDP parts (about $25-50 more), not $200 more.JDG1980 - Sunday, June 2, 2013 - link
If you can wait six months or so, you're probably going to be better off going with Kaveri. AMD is going to be substantially increasing the GPU power of their APU and switching to a homogenous memory architecture so everything uses GDDR5. What little I've heard (which may not be reliable) seems to indicate that the GPU in Kaveri may be about on par with the discrete 7750. I don't know if they can pull that off, but if they even come close then they will have basically rendered all sub-$100 discrete GPUs obsolete.lmcd - Sunday, June 2, 2013 - link
Inaccurate. $100 GPUs will have improved by Kaveri's release. And AMD's drivers won't necessarily meet the expectations set here either.medi02 - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
This driver FUD is getting old...Spunjji - Tuesday, June 4, 2013 - link
Very old, but don't expect it to stop.