Intel's Haswell - An HTPC Perspective: Media Playback, 4K and QuickSync Evaluated
by Ganesh T S on June 2, 2013 8:15 PM ESTPower Consumption
Before proceeding to the business end of the review, let us take a look at some power consumption numbers. The G.Skill RAM was set to DDR3 1600 during the measurements. We measured the average power drawn at the wall under different conditions. In the table below, the Blu-ray movie from the optical disk was played using CyberLink PowerDVD 13. The ISOs were mounted using Windows 8's in-built mounting tool. Prime95 v27.9 and Furmark v1.10.6 were used for stress testing. Blu-ray ISO ripping was done using AnyDVD HD v7.2. The Prime95 + Furmark benchmark was run for 1 hour before any measurements were taken. Power consumption numbers for local file playback using various renderer / decode combinations has already been covered in a previous section. The testbed was connected to a Wi-Fi network (and the GbE port was left unconnected) throughout the evaluation. In all cases, a wireless keyboard and mouse were connected to the testbed.
| Haswell HTPC Testbed Power Consumption | |
| Idle | 25.94 W |
| Sleep | 1.38 W |
| Prime95 v27.9 + Furmark 1.10.6 (Full loading of both CPU and GPU) | 85.68 W |
| Prime95 v27.9 (Full loading of CPU only) | 73.79 W |
| 1080p24 H.264 Blu-ray Playback from ODD | 34.5 W |
| 1080p24 VC-1 Blu-ray Playback from ODD | 33.21 W |
| 1080i60 VC-1 Blu-ray Playback from ODD | 34.37 W |
| 1080p24 VC-1 Blu-ray ISO Streaming from NAS | 30.91 W |
| 1080p24 H.264 MVC Blu-ray ISO Streaming from NAS | 32.67 W |
| Blu-ray Rip to ISO from ODD | 36.41 W |
The following screenshots gives an idea of how the integrated GPU and the CPU share the thermal headroom. In the first case, we have full CPU loading and no load on the GPU.
The CPU package power is around 47 W, with the IA cores alone consuming around 37 W. The second screenshot shows the transition from purely full CPU loading to full CPU and GPU loading. The CPU package power rises from 47 W to around 54 W. The GPU is consuming around 18 W, while the IA cores go down to around 27 W.
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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.