AMD 780G: Preview of the Best Current IGP Solution

by Gary Key on 3/10/2008 12:00 PM EST
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  • greenfuzion - Thursday, April 17, 2008 - link

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l2e0mf3CcA">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l2e0mf3CcA
  • Schugy - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    The new AMD chipset is a good choice for a MythTV frontend and it will play normal mpeg2 tv flawlessly.
    But I won't need any HD capabilities because video players like kaffeine or mplayer won't support HDCP crap or any hardware accelleration.
    With the lousy closed source nVIDIA linux driver not supporting pureview I can't even watch the unencrypted EA Burnout Paradise demo video fullscreen (VIDEO: [avc1] 1280x720 24bpp) without any performance problems. But I think a Sempron 3000+ SOA and a 7600GT should be enough for this resolution far away from full HD.
    I won't spend any money for HD hardware or HD content because there's no sense in it.

  • najames - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    Since these boards are intended as media PCs, I think you should be doing thorough testing of the onboard LAN. My Biostar TA690G does a decent job on gigabit, my Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H sucked at sending, ok in receiving. Intel Pro1000 PCI-e x1 replacement card did a lot better on the Gigabyte, although I still question the boards throughput. I have done a LOT of LAN testing on Linux for a building server. This kind of stuff needs to be checked, writing to a single WD 640GB drive.

    ftp> put mint.iso
    local: mint.iso remote: mint.iso
    200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
    150 Ok to send data.
    226 File receive OK.
    722104320 bytes sent in 6.41 secs (109965.8 kB/s)
    ftp> quit
  • yehuda - Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - link

    Gigabyte's 690G and 690V boards suck at network performance because they use a PCI controller as upposed to a PCI Express controller in most other boards.

    Fortunately, the GA-MA78GM-S2H is free from this drawback. You can check the network results here:
    http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14261/13">http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14261/13

    That said, I can't explain your comment on questionable throughput with the replacement PCI-e card.
  • rhofmann - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    1080p HD decode is great, but in my experience I've found that the de-interlacing required by 1080i broadcast HD content has been an Achilles heel for HTPC output with integrated graphics.
  • jamawass - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    Never thought I'd see the day when Tomshardware actually published a better review than Anandtech. I don't understand how a review article on AMD 780g ends with a paragraph on an Intel chipset talking about strengths in"office applications", heck a igp chipset 10 yrs ago was good in office applications.
    This is the best IGP chipset currently and the article should have stated that categorically instead of using lame " AMD got it almost right". What use is lpcm audio when the image is paused and juddering on your screen?
    Power consumption, sound use are all relevant when reviewing a platform like this I just didn't see the empahsis on these in this article.
  • TheJian - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    I was surprised by TomsHardware too. I haven't put much stock in their site for years (since a ways before they soldout). In the beginning Tom Pabst did an excellent job HIMSELF. But now it's just his name on the site. I expected to read their review over here, and Anandtech's review over at Toms...LOL. Maybe I'll have to start paying more attention to Toms. Jeez, did I say that out loud? Or am I just thinking it... :)

    Toms review was definitely shooting straight. Totally agree that Audio (any kind not just over HDMI) can't get me to lean towards Intel if the picture sucks to begin with. What's the point in Hi-Def if it looks like crap? OH wait...That's right it still sounds good! LOL. Whatever...
  • gochichi - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    Refurbished Dell Vostro 400 desktop with a superior Intel Quad chip, Vista Home Premium, 2GB RAM (upgradeable), 160GB HDD, DVD+/-, 8300 GS (which should do just about as well, very very close I imagine), keyboard, mouse and some sense of synergy. Meaning, you get a keyb/mouse/case that match in some way... even if the thing is not particularly small, it's pretty small and high quality looking than most reasonably priced cases.

    Heck, forget price, only a few cases are passable PERIOD. Vista's pricing even the so-called "OEM" price really messes things up also.

    The Vostro mentioned above, which would outperform any Phenom is $459.00 ready to go... already assembled, perfect matches etc.

    Before you ask me... why don't I just buy it if I like the deal so much? I just might, I just might is the answer.
  • Zstream - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    Utter rubish! A Vostro 400 huh?

    Lets go to dell's site. A Vostro 400 with Intel® Core™2 Duo Proc E4500 (2.20GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800FSB), one gig of ram, dvd-rom, 160gb hard drive...

    I would purchase a 780g/tri-core htpc over this any day of the week.
  • gochichi - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    Did you ever consider that you can't find the unit I'm talking about anymore.

    I said nothing about a 2.2Ghz Duo anything. I was talking about a QUAD 2.4 Ghz with a small HDD, 2GB of RAM and a remedial video card (that would perform about as well as the 780G, maybe a little better it was a 8300 GS).

    Dell WAS selling 2.4Ghz quad refurbs as duos... but I don't know if that's changed.

    All of this is really irrelevant. I guess the broader point is that building a computer from scratch blows for a number of reasons (unless you're really going to spend in top end stuff).

    1. Getting a decent case/PSU for under $100.00 is a feat, and even then it's too much.
    2. Vista or any other MS system is over priced.

    About the 780G, my first reaction was: "it's only $70.00" and I started going from there. But you know what? At the end of the day, you're really saving $30.00 on what a remedial 8400 GS would cost. $30.00 when you're building from scratch just isn't that much. AMD has provided a decent part for OEMs though. Hopefully they can deliver.

    As for the Vostro 400 w/ Quad and Vista Home Premium for $469.00 hopefully I'll be able to find it again and buy it. $40.00 upgrades it to 4GB of RAM and you can actually put any video card you want in that thing (just one though obviously). So 9600GT down the line, or wait it out and get something next gen.

    Part of the advantage of building from scratch is overclocking. But no matter how much you overclock a Phenom, it's still pretty much not as good as a basic 2.4Ghz intel Quad. Those things have been around forever. Intel is totally yawning as they pummel AMD. Overclocking also means even pricier parts and headache and I'm just not seeing how you could possibly beat the bang/$ of the Vostro.

    Now, that's me. You want to build a system based AMD and this chipset, it sounds like fun... but it doesn't sound smart.




  • derek85 - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    You certainly don't know anything about multimedia.

    With a 780G + Phenom + 2ch DDR2-667 or 800 you are getting almost full HDHQV scores; with 8300GS the memory on those cards are severely limited to single channel DDR2-800 and you are not getting ANY HDHQV features, the image quality would be very poor in comparison, and there is no way to remedy that no matter how powerful your CPU is.

    You said Phenom is not a good overclocker, and I agree with that, but what you got wrong is the market that 780G is aiming at. At this price point most people would never look at overclocking their PC, heck the average joe out there probably don't even know what's actually inside their computer case. The 780G will make a very good platform for everyday as well as a HTPC, and I'm sure it will be a good pick for OEMs.
  • derek85 - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    Guess I hit enter button too soon...

    What I was trying to say is 780G excels in multimedia and will make its way into a damn good budget PC. You are looking at $50-60 saving in an entry level discrete graphics card, and probably $20-30 more on the motherboard at current running price for 780G. 780G will also do just fine in light gaming and usual productivity tasks. It can score 1600+ in 3DMark06, and a 8400GS is not going to do any better than that.
  • gochichi - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    OK, so I'm excited for AMD. This kind of makes them really feasible again. I mean, for the price of a cheap video card... they throw in a free (and pretty decent) motherboard.

    I once read that some AMD official (maybe even the president, don't remember) thought that things are so tight in the CPU industry that it's a lot more profitable to make CPU cooling.

    Well??? C'MON! There is currently no mainstream HTPC system. AMD could really sell these IF they could sell it even more as a platform. Why leave it up to so-far so-chintzy 3rd parties to make something decent.

    What I would like to see is a "genuine" AMD thin case, with a power supply and a new type of AMD chip that comes with a flatter CPU cooler. All I want is space for one harddrive, and one 5.25" drive... make it as tight and slick as possible, and make it relatively affordable. Why not?

    I mean, I know it won't happen. But it should. This promises tighter integration, and I believe that making this integration visible to the consumer via a slick AMD-branded case (work with Antec, Lian-Li or just AMD) that draws attention to the near console price that you can now build a system with.

    Also, because Vista is so expensive to the people building their own machine. It is critical for them to offer splendid Linux support. If I knew it was plug & play with the next Ubuntu including audio through HDMI... that would sell it to me all over again.

    AMD ALMOST has the price-point going on. Vista messes that up, expensive and UNIMPRESSIVE cases/power supplies messes that up as well.

    Do you people realize that a Mac Min is currently the cheapest slick-form factor computer available??? How can that be? Apple is EXPENSIVE!?! It doesn't need to be ridiculously small... but slicker than the crap that's available.

    Asus makes something like I have in mind but it's ran on Intel and is expensive as all get out.

    AMD... give us the humble little platform that could. You're SO close now.
  • JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    You know, I reviewed an Aopen MiniPC a long time ago. I burned out one fan in the process of a one month review. Okay, sure, I was stress-testing with Folding@Home, but that still gives me pause. Then I got a new fan, finished the review, and about two months later (without stress testing) the second fan gave out! I'd assume the Mac Mini is doing better than Aopen, since I haven't heard any uproar, but then I don't follow Macs much.

    More to the point, going *small* has some potential drawbacks. After initially being impressed by SFF and other small systems, I'm pretty much done with them now. uATX is more or less viable, but if you're looking for long-term reliability and don't want overheating and premature part failures, I would stick with a decent ATX case. The uATX stuff just never seems quite as robust after a couple years of use, IMO.
  • gochichi - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    The Mac Mini wannabe that you're talking about was not what I had in mind. What I am saying is that buying a Mac Mini, and installing Windows Vista for $100.00 is still cheaper than most small/slick form factors.

    Now, Mac Mini is absurdly small (it's very well executed, and reliable as hell, but the slow harddrive etc is absurd IMHO). I'm suggesting something 8 times as big or so (2 mac minis tall, 4 per layer-ish). Just make it slick. It's REALLY not that hard!

    I keep thinking I should just cast an aluminum case from scratch b/c the market is that lame. The few cases that aren't lame are over priced as hell. I suppose the really small HP is fine, (perfect even in terms of size/$/sacrifices). But what about the people that want to buy something from scratch and not undergo armed robbery and chintziness all at the same time.

    AMD is unable to take things to the next level. This new vision of "lets not beat Intel in performance/$" COULD work, but it would need a gimmick. They are definitely missing that gimmick although this new chipset came close.

    The only actual contribution to the world that this chipset has made is that Intel will beat it (or compete with it) and since Intel has stellar Linux support, better CPUs, and better battery life on laptops etc... that will be good. I really only need so much from a graphics card most of the time, and this 780G covers NEEDS.
  • phusg - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    What's wrong with Shuttle SFF PC's? Sure the internal PSU crapped out on me after a few years, but I think mine looks pretty good.

    I do agree with your parent post though that SFF isn't really worth the hassle in a lot of cases. A HTPC is often accompanied by an AV Receiver and TV that are often both easily as big as ATX, so what's the point in going small for the PC component? I'm currently building a recylcled ATX machine as a HTPC to replace my Shuttle and am sure I will love the extra expansion slots, cooler temps and quieter operation. If AMD would just make a decent AGP driver release all will be good again...
  • JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    What's wrong? I suppose it all depends on the TLC you give your computer. I'd *never* recommend overclocking Shuttle - or any other - SFFs. I did that in my early SFF reviews. Some of those systems I kept overclocked (and we're talking mild 10-20% overclocks), and most would fail within a year. Even *without* overclocking, nearly every SFF I've ever used failed in some manner before two years was up.

    Shuttle did better in this regard than others, but the long-term prospects are pretty poor. I had several motherboards fail (will no longer POST at all). I've had fan controllers fail on at least two units - still usable, but now you need to plug into a regular Molex connector and run the fan at 100%. PSUs have failed on maybe 1/3 of the SFFs I've used (within a two year period - most last at least a year).

    The real issue with the above is that all SFFs are proprietary, so when something inevitably *does* fail, you get raped on price a second time. And taking the motherboard or PSU out of an SFF is not nearly as easy as in a uATX/ATX system. If you want the wiring to look nice again - which is actually critical in such a small chassis since it affects airflow - you're looking at many hours of work.
  • gochichi - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    Building a computer on the cheap, doesn't add up anymore.

    AMD would be wise to partner up and make a conveniently priced, conveniently sized, platform. Because if the price is right and it's convenient then their performance deficit is not important.


  • sprockkets - Thursday, March 13, 2008 - link

    They could always release a DTX board, like they said over a year ago.
  • panfist - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    Will it be worth waiting for a 790GX? Or if I want that much performance, just go with discrete graphics that's better than hybrid crossfire anyway?

    What's the best AMD HTPC board that uses discrete graphics?
  • Gary Key - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    The 790GX features the HD 3300, which is a slight upgrade to the HD 3200 on the 780G. We are told the IGP performance differences will be slightly improved, but until we have the chipset and drivers, it will be difficult to determine if those improvement are meaningful or not. At this time, AMD is quiet about actual specs and capabilities of the 790GX. If you are a very casual gamer, Sims2/UT2004/CoH type of games then Hybrid CrossFire is a decent solution up to 1280x1024 resolution. If you want to run upcoming games and Crysis at an acceptable rate, then discreet graphics is the way to go.

    At this time, if you want an uATX form factor, the 780G is the best AMD chipset for discrete graphics performance. I have not found any real difference in performance between it and a 770X board with a HD 3870 installed. You need to go up to the 790FX for the best performing chipset with an AM2+ CPU right now. I will update this if we get a performance oriented BIOS for the GeForce 8200 board which may or may not changes its performance capabilities.
  • Genx87 - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link

    Maybe it is late.

    What is the expected cost and release date of this motherboard?

  • Gary Key - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    The reader who responded basically answered the supply and price question. :) NewEgg was running a special on the ECS board this week for %59.99 with a rebate. Our information is that all of the launch partners for this board should have supply in the channel by the end of March or early April at worst. The feature sets will determine the prices but AMD was shooting for an average street price of $75 on the 780G. The 780V will be a white box or OEM only SKU for now.

    The J&W board will not be available in the US or Canada at this time. It is the only board we have in-house that offers the SidePort memory option and with the latest 8.3 drivers, it makes a 5%~10% difference in a few games. AMD is telling us the final 8.4 drivers should allow this option to assist in lowering CPU utilization by a few percent also.
  • goinginstyle - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    The Gigabyte, ASUS, and ECS boards are available (if in stock) in the Americas at prices ranging from $69 to $99. In Europe and APAC, the J&W boards (along with the others) are available currently. The J&W will be our choice for the more performance oriented user. We expect to see boards from Biostar, abit, MSI, and Foxconn shortly at prices under $100, average MSRP for this chipset should be around $80 once supply is plentiful.
  • goinginstyle - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    Hit the enter button too soon but that information is from another website that will not be mentioned just in case it is a violation of the rules here. I bought the Gigabyte board from NEWEGG last week for $95 and found out today that the 780G chipset shows ENG0752 on it. Any comments on your boards having ENG chipsets?
  • eches - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link

    BUT sadly almost useless to me since all my HTPC builds run Linux. It would be VERY interesting to see a comparison in terms of Linux to Windows playback quality/performance since the drivers are bound to make a huge difference here.

    Also some interesting comments - my Linux HTPC runs an XP2600 (OC to 2.1 Ghz) and only just manages to handle 720p MKV playback. Can a Sempron at 1.8Ghz really manage 720p under Windows? Might be time for an upgrade *grin*
  • phusg - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    Your hardware should be plenty to playback 720p video. If only something as efficient as CoreCodec's CoreAVC was available for linux. What do you presently use to playback? Is the playback totally smooth?

    It's also a shame the hardware acceleration of HD video on the newer AGP cards isn't available on the linux side, that would be another cheap way to stretch your hardware :)
  • eches - Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - link

    Smooth at 2.13Ghz, but with some sound sync issues - this is with Xine and all de-interlacing/post-processing disabled (and minimal background processing). And indeed I am awaiting the CoreAVC player for Linux (yes, I could patch MPlayer but I'm also trying to keep the HTPC low maintenance) since this is a quick and cheap way of making the most of this old hardware.

    And cheers Gary! I look forward to the Linux article with GREAT interest - will you also be taking a look at NVidia cards and doing a quality comparison?
  • Gary Key - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    We just shipped a 780G board to one of our upcoming Linux editors to test. We should have some initial results in the next couple of weeks. I have not had a pleasurable experience with the Sempron 3400+ doing encoding/decoding work on this board under Vista. It is something I am still working on for a future HTPC article, one that we will recommend/show just how low you can go with the new IGP boards and still have a "well performing" system. Does a Sempron 3400+ and a HD 3450 card for a total outlay of $85 offer better performance on this board than a 4850e CPU only for the same price. This is something we are trying to answer with Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD hardware.
  • eches - Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - link

    Sorry I had tacked on a "cheers" at the end of the reply further down - GREAT stuff!

    "How Low Can You Go?" eh? Sounds very interesting but complex if done properly (i.e. Tests on Vista, XP and Linux; and a need to cover quite a few players in order to do quality/performance comparisons). A look at power consumption would also add an interesting slant - *possibly* putting XP/Vista in a different light when once considers TCO and Linuxs often poor power management.

    Personally I was surprised to get a XP2600 to play 720p content and could probably get it smooth without an OC if I used CoreAVC and a dedicated sound card. Given we're talking 6 year old 'junk' hardware here, a free OS etc. thats pretty low!
  • - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link

    Where is the discussion of this chipset as an HTPC? Just a tidbit here and there? I thought that was a major selling point here. With a single core sempron 1.8ghz being enough for an HTPC which NEVER hits 100% cpu usage (see tomshardware.com) you don't need a dual core and can probably hit 60w in your HTPC! Maybe less. Why was this not a major topic in this article? With you claiming the E8300/E8200 in your last article being a HTPC dreamers chip shouldn't you be talking about how low you could go with a sempron 1.8ghz? Isn't that the best HTPC combo out there now? No heat, super low cost running it all year long etc (NOISELESS with a proper heatsink).

    Are we still supposed to believe your article about the E8500? While I freely admit chomping at the bit to buy an E8500 to Overclock the crap out of it (I'm pretty happy now with my e4300@3.0 and can't wait for 3.6ghz with e8500, though it will go further probably who needs more than 3.6 today for gaming), it's a piece of junk for an HTPC. Overly expensive ($220? for e8300 that was recommended) compared to a lowly Sempron 1.8 which I can pick up for $34 at newegg. With that kind of savings I can throw in a 8800GT in my main PC as a bonus for avoiding Intel. What's the point in having an HTPC where the cpu utilization is only 25%? That's complete OVERKILL. I want that as close to 100% as possible to save me money on the chip and then on savings all year long with low watts. With $200 savings on a cpu I can throw in an audigy if needed for special audio applications (since you whined about 780G's audio). A 7.1channel Audigy with HD can be had for $33 at newegg. For an article totally about "MULTIMEDIA OUTPUT QUALITIES" where's the major HTPC slant?
  • sprockkets - Thursday, March 13, 2008 - link

    Dude, buy a 2.2ghz Athlon X2 chip for like $55. You save what, around $20 or less with a Sempron nowadays?
  • QuickComment - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    It's not 'whining' about the audio. Sticking in a sound card from Creative still won't give 7.1 sound over HDMI. That's important for those that have a HDMI-amp in a home theatre setup.
  • TheJian - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    That amp doesn't also support digital audio/Optical? Are we just talking trying to do the job within 1 cable here instead of 2? Isn't that kind of being nit picky? To give up video quality to keep in on 1 cable to me is unacceptable (hence I'd never "lean" towards G35 as suggested in the article). I can't even watch if the video sucks.
  • QuickComment2 - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    No, its not about 1 cable instead of 2. SPDIF is fine for Dolby digital and the like, ie compressed audio, but not for 7.1 uncompressed audio. For that, you need HDMI. So, this is a real deal-breaker for those serious about audio.
  • JarredWalton - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link

    I don't know about others, but I find video encoding is something I do on a regular basis with my HTPC. No sense storing a full quality 1080i HDTV broadcast using 16GB of storage for two hours when a high quality DivX or H.264 encode can reduce disk usage down to 4GB, not to mention ripping out all the commercials. Or you can take the 3.5GB per hour Windows Media Center encoding and turn that into 700MB per hour.

    I've done exactly that type of video encoding on a 1.8GHz Sempron; it's PAINFUL! If you're willing to just spend a lot of money on HDD storage, sure it can be done. Long-term, I'm happier making a permanent "copy" of any shows I want to keep.

    The reality is that I don't think many people are buying HTPCs when they can't afford more than a $40 CPU. HTPCs are something most people build as an extra PC to play around with. $50 (only $10 more) gets you twice the CPU performance, just in case you need it. If you can afford a reasonable HTPC case and power supply, I dare say spending $100-$200 on the CPU is a trivial concern.

    Single-core older systems are still fine if you have one, but if you're building a new PC you should grab a dual-core CPU, regardless of how you plan to use the system. That's my two cents.
  • TheJian - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    I guess you guys don't have a big TV. With a 65in Divx has been out of the question for me. It just turns to crap. I'd do anything regarding editing on my main PC with the HTPC merely being a cheap player for blu-ray etc. A network makes it easy to send them to the HTPC. Just set the affinity on one of your cores to vidcoding and I can still play a game on the other. Taking 3.5GB to 700MB looks like crap on a big tv. I've noticed it's watchable on my 46in, but awful on the 65. They look great on my PC, but I've never understood anyone watching anything on their PC. Perhaps a college kid with no room for a TV. Other than that...
  • JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    SD resolutions at 46" (what I have) or 65" are always going to look lousy. Keeping it in the original format doesn't fix that; it merely makes to use more space.

    My point is that a DivX, x64, or similar encoding of a Blu-ray, HDTV, or similar HD show loses very little in overall quality. I'm not saying take the recording and make it into a 640x360 SD resolution. I'm talking about converting a full bitrate 1080p source into a 1920x1080 DivX HD, x64, etc. file. Sure, there's some loss in quality, but it's still a world better than DVD quality.

    It's like comparing a JPEG at 4-6 quality to the same image at 12 quality. If you do a diff, you will find lots of little changes on the lower quality image. If you want to print up a photo, the higher quality is desirable. If you're watching these images go by at 30FPS, though, you won't see much of a loss in overall quality. You'll just use about 1/3 the space and bandwidth.

    Obviously, MPEG4 algorithms are *much* more complex than what I just described - which is closer to MPEG2. It's an analogy of how a high quality HD encode compares to original source material. Then again, in the case of HDTV, the original source material is MPEG2 encoded and will often have many artifacts already.
  • yehuda - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link

    Great article. Thanks to Gary and everyone involved! The last paragraph is hilarious.

    One thing that bothers me about this launch is the fact that board vendors do not support the dual independent displays feature to full extent.

    If I understand the article correctly, the onboard GPU lets you run two displays off any combination of ports of your choice (VGA, DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort).

    However, board vendors do not let you do that with two digital ports. They let you use VGA+DVI or VGA+HDMI, but not DVI+HDMI. At least, this is what I have gathered reading the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H and Asus M3A78-EMH-HDMI manuals. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

    How come tier-1 vendors overlook such a worthy feature? How come AMD lets them get away with it?
  • Ajax9000 - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    They are appearing. At CeBIT Intel showed off two mini-ITX boards with dual digital.
    DQ45EK DVI+DVI
    DG45FC DVI+HDMI
    http://www.mini-itx.com/2008/03/06/intels-eaglelak...">http://www.mini-itx.com/2008/03/06/intels-eaglelak...
  • yehuda - Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - link

    Yes, these are upcoming Intel boards based on the next-gen G45/Q45 chipsets. Thanks for the link.

    The thing is that dual digital boards could have been here today. The 780G boards from Asus and Gigabyte too have DVI+HDMI on the back panel. My complaint is that they won't let you run both ports at the same time, even though the IGP supports that.
  • psychobriggsy - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link

    It's really good to see AMD doing something well.

    Well, apart from the southbridge, but at least the USB2 performance issues are fixed, and otherwise most people will never notice the few differences.

    Great chipset for HTPC though. Here's hoping to see what a few more driver revisions can do!
  • samivesusu - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcbGV6Pfb6Q">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcbGV6Pfb6Q
  • goinginstyle - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link

    Thanks for the image comparisons. I think it is about time that somebody showed HD images from actual titles instead of quicktime trailers. Looking forward to the roundup but mainly more image comparisons and quad-core results for the boards. Is a Q6600 on the G35 going to make the stutter/judder problem go away for h.264 titles? Any chance of audio tests with the boards?
  • TheJian - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link

    Why would you run a quadcore without a REAL video card? You're missing the whole point of this chipset in that case. Which is HTPC market and the CHEAPO CPU market playing games. This is the best HTPC chipset out there. You can run a SEMPRON 1.8ghz chip as TomsHardware showed a few days ago. That's a SINGLE CORE chip. No need for Dual cores they tested here. IF you have the money for a quad core surely you have $190 for a 8800GT. Why would I want Integrated graphics with a quad core?
  • Ajax9000 - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    Well, one reason is that IGP-to-HDMI is currently the only way to get better than AC3-class digital audio out of an HTPC (due to the lack of OS kernel-level protected audio path for user accessible buses).

    ... which highlights the strange design of the 780G -- the Southbridge can do Intel HD Audio, but the Northbridge is limited to AC3-class audio.
  • sprockkets - Thursday, March 13, 2008 - link

    Or as mentioned L 2.1. Is there anyone that actually notices the difference in audio quality?

    Hey, I wish someone also tested how the Intel nVidia 7xxx series chipset does. Since it has only one memory channel, it must make it all suck.
  • Gary Key - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    I have tested this board with a Sempron 64 3400+ and did not have the same results as Tom's with our hardware and driver setup. I am still working on the numbers but the H.264 (AVC) playback experience was not that pleasurable with our video titles. Yes, playback was possible but any system level requests or bitrate spikes above 40Mbps resulted in judder or stuttering. We will look at the lowest common hardware denominator from a CPU/GPU viewpoint in an HTPC focused article next month. We just shipped a 780G board to our Linux editors to test. Hopefully, we can have some initial results early next month.
  • goinginstyle - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    It might be the fact that I can afford a Q6600 or Phenom by not buying a separate video card. The whole point of having a quad is to setup a encoding system that will not take 14 hours to encode a single movie like my Celeron took. I wish this chipset was available for the Intel cpus but I have to admit that my gigabyte 780g board with a 9500 Phenom is working very well right now. After reading about the post processing information, I am glad I bought a phenom. Now I wonder if a Q6600/G35 would have been better if that combo does not choke on AVC materials.

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