AMD 780G: Best Ever Integrated Mainstream Chipset?

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NX3
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Post by NX3 » Sun Mar 23, 2008 2:06 pm

Its a software feature using the current hardware, future updates will build it into the hardware so it doesn't need to be software controlled :P

xen
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Post by xen » Sun Mar 23, 2008 2:09 pm

Aah, ingenieus. Just emulate it until you have built it ;P

nitram_tpr
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Post by nitram_tpr » Tue Mar 25, 2008 3:22 am

I have given up on the 3450...I could never get the HDMI port to be utilised as the primary port. As this is for my brother and he doesn't have a Monitor, only a LCD TV I have left the 3450 out for now.
I will buy him some more leads so that we can hook the 3450 up to the TV via the RGB cable that came with the card.

To be honest I have found this one of the most painful installs of recent times, Vista took an age to install.
In the end I had to change the SATA settings to be IDE for Vista to work, I also installed it with just one stick of ram, then added the second once Vista was in.
Once it was installed the catalyst installation was a pain.
The amount of updates that Vista installed was huge........the SP1 update failed, so I had to download the whole SP1 from M$, then install that, that then hung on the 3rd update, I left it for 3 hours and it didn't move from 35%, so I rebooted and it finished installing.

The catalyst 8.3's would not let me run 3dmark06 on either the on-board VGA or the 3450 and I really couldn't be arsed to go back to the 8.2's.

After all the trials and tribulations of the install, the final P.C is great, I used an Antec Fusion as the case, the picture quality at 1080 is awesome.

[EDIT]
Edited for stoopid typos!
[/EDIT]
Last edited by nitram_tpr on Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

NX3
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Post by NX3 » Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:04 am

I share your sentiments really as I'm happy with the end result but it was a hassle to get to it. Vista install wasn't so bad as I read about how to get ACHI working and all the updates + SP1...well...thats MS, XP would have wanted loads of updates as well. Swapping the monitors around making one primary, secondard etc is a faff and not very logical but can be done. It should be easier though and Catalyst 8.3 have some issues yet to be resolved. Hoping Cats 8.4 work better.

jimbojr
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Post by jimbojr » Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:04 am

To NX3 or nitram_tpr:

Firstly thanks for posting your info/benchies :) Got a question for one of you guys (if you can answer it!)

I built a server with a 690G mobo (Gigabyte) recently, and one of the things that I noticed was that the northbridge heatsink got very hot on this board (and searching the web it seemed to be a common problem). My issue was that I was using a Scythe Ninja cooler and relying on the 12mm rear case fan to cool it (worked very well - and ultra quiet!) but I think the small heatsinks probably rely on a downward blowing cpu fan/heatsking to give them lots of airflow.

Do you guys know how hot these new 780G heatsinks get? I'm concerned as I'd really like to build a machine for a friend based on the 780G and use the same ninja / rear case fan cooling solution as it is so nice and quiet - but not if it causes overheating issues!?

I've read quite a few reviews on the web, but nobody seems to mention how hot the heatsinks on the mobo get... I'm guessing probably still very hot, seeing as the new chipset seems to use approximately the same kind of power as the 690G?

Cheers, J.

NX3
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Post by NX3 » Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:42 am

I've got from a Gigabyte 690 to 780 and both have hot northbridge chips. I get no air out of the side of my stock AMD HSF combo. The way its orientated is the solid side is of the HSF lines up with the northbridge. Its all standard stuff, in a midi tower so looking at it side on the heatsink fins runs horizontally so no downwoulds airflow, it would be good if it did I suppose.

I don't have a exact temp but its hot but to touch (ouch) no hotter than the 690 did and that was hot. I ran the 690 for a year no problems. I've got a 12cm rear fan and that's it. It doesn't really answer your question but it confirms they both run hot.

jimbojr
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Post by jimbojr » Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:26 am

Hi NX3 - thanks for the info.

If the NB is as hot as a 690G that is annoying. In my 690G server I bodged a Thremalright NB cooler on to the motherboard, but it was a pain as really it didn't fit so I had to make some 'modifications' to it and lose the ability to use the 4x PCIe slot as the hs was in the way (but for a headless linux server I don't care - no plans to add any expansion cards anyway).

Generally I want to build stable machines from stock parts for friends/family - so less maintenance ;-) Maybe I should just invest in a downward-blowing, but quiet, cpu cooler...

Or perhaps the Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI will do better (whenever it comes in stock @ Scan!) Looks like the NB heatsink is a little larger / sticks up more from the mbob.

Cheers, J.

NX3
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Post by NX3 » Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:29 am

I've rolled out 690 setups to my family and nobodys had any problems thought the NB gets hot. They've had them a good 6 months now no worries. I bought a North-Q NQ3881 to replace the northbright, its cheap from scan, the copper version isnt much better from reviews and has a fan mount, maybe an option. I have a Asus 690G HDMI board as well, bigger heatsick but it gets equally as hot. That PC is on a ot but no problems again. It seems a stable setup, just the northbridge is warm.

nitram_tpr
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Post by nitram_tpr » Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:19 am

I also noticed that the NB cooler got quite hot, for a laugh I overclocked the onboard GPU from 500 to 700 and it got so hot that I could just about bear to touch it.

A fan would help no doubt, but to be honest I don't think it is required.

When i had the 3450 in the machine the heatsink on that got very hot too. I placed the scythe fan that came with the Minja against it and plugged it into the CPU fan header, I could not hear the fan running at all but it did cool the heatsink on the 3450 significantly.

I am going to put the 3450 back in when the 8.4's are released.

I built this for my brother and it is in an Antec Fusion case. The CPU heatsink is running without a fan and the heatsink is not getting hot at all, the Minja is a fantastic cooler, well worth the cash.

I removed the fans that came with the case, these have a switch on them allowing the fan to run at low, medium and high speeds, but even at L they were fairly audible. I changed them for some Akasa fans these I have plugged into the 2 fan headers on the motherboard and they are virtually silent and drag the air out of the system quite nicely. Well recommended. The placement in this case is very good, the air gets pulled across the motherboard from the PCI slots across the NB through the CPU heatsink and then out of the case. So I don't think there will be any heat issues, as the fans are plugged into the motherboard headers the motherboard will control the airflow and these fans suck a hell of a lot of air at full speed.

All in all after all the frustrations of building up this system I really like it. To be able to spend so little on a motherboard, CPU, memory and Heatsink (about £200) and have a system capable of being a damn fine HTPC is pretty amazing.
The picture quality at 1920x1080 is great, it's the first time I have watched anything in full HD and it was flippin awesome.

NX3
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Post by NX3 » Wed Mar 26, 2008 2:08 pm

I noticed the 3450 (sapphire) can get hot but when idle it runs warm. My ATI 2400 (Asus) runs cooler but had a bigger heatsink :)

floepie
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Post by floepie » Thu Mar 27, 2008 1:29 pm

BillyBuerger wrote:
nutball wrote:What's the situation these days with ATI drivers and driving 1366x768 / 1920x1080 displays at 1:1 without too much messing about?
I've got an HD3450 connected to my 1366x768 LCD TV. It has 1360x768 as a valid resolution. Windows desktop looks better than 1280x720, but still blurry text. I don't see any options to set custom resolutions. :( I was going to try power strip, probably next week when I'm installing my blu-ray drive. But no "out of the box" 1366x768 options yet.
When you say, "It has 1360x768 as a valid resolution," what does "it" refer to? The TV or the card? My question is simple: I have a 1366x768 LCD TV that can ONLY accept a 1360x768 signal (along with 720p). So, like nVidia cards, can the ATI ones output at 1360x768 (not 1366x768) as well now?

ryan2215
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Post by ryan2215 » Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:35 pm

dummy post. I need to have 1 post before i can post a link. . .

ryan2215
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Post by ryan2215 » Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:36 pm

ok, i built my system last night,

GA-MA78GM-S2H
65nm 65w x2 4400+
2gb gskill ddr2 800
asus triton 75 + scythe s-flex sff21e
kubuntu 7.10
kubuntu 8.04 beta
xp
f3 bios
catalyst 8.3 on linux/xp

i have 3 questions.

1 - i ran prime 95 and speed fan and my board showed similar temps to the ones shown in the review:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/ima ... eedfan.gif

my "temp3" also got to 90C, 92C even. My question is, what part of the motherboard is temp3 sensing? is it the integrated graphics chip? if so, why did my temp3 raise from 80C(where it stays put during normal use) to 92C during prime 95, which i thought only taxes the cpu, not the gpu? maybe because it taxes the memory as well?


2- direction fan should point on top of cpucooler
the asus triton 75 cpu cooler doesn't come with a fan, so i bought a 12cm scythe. I installed the fan on top of the cooler with the S-FLEX sticker side out, which means the direction of the air is over the fins of the cooler and towards the processor. Is this correct, or should the airflow be pointed away from the processor?

3-best videocard for using hybrid graphics?

so, according to tomshardware, if you install a 3850, the onboard graphics get turned of, so you can't enable the hybrid crossfire, so, is there documentation somewhere that shows a list of the cards available that will work with vista and hybrid crossfire enabled? or, will updates to catalyst enable more cards(3850, 3870) to work in hybrid?

thanks

nitram_tpr
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Post by nitram_tpr » Fri Mar 28, 2008 12:15 am

The only card that will work in hybrid is the 3450. Whilst in hybrid the onboard graphics outputs are disabled. It would be nice if you could add a more powerful card for hybrid.
I couldn't get hybrid working with the Cat 8.2's I could only get it working with the 8.3's.
I'm not too sure how much of a benefit the onboard graphics would add to say a 3850 or 3870.

Goldmember
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Post by Goldmember » Fri Mar 28, 2008 8:36 am

lobuni wrote:
floepie wrote: Does anyone know of any full size ATX boards on the horizon for this chipset?
2 from Asus:
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?optio ... &Itemid=37
And 1 more from Gigabyte.
NX3 wrote:...I believe its a software only at the moment and future version of the hardware will implement this.
Anandtech said the following in their preview:
Anandtech wrote:The announcement gets even less exciting when you realize that the biggest feature of Hybrid CrossFire, the ability to power down your discrete graphics and only use integrated graphics in non-gaming scenarios, won't be delivered in the first version of the platform. While AMD mentioned that the power savings feature may be something we'll see in 2008, it's definitely not making its way out in the first release.

The power savings potential for Hybrid CrossFire is tremendous; even with the most aggressive power management we see on GPUs today, cards like the Radeon HD 3870 and GeForce 8800 GTS still waste a lot of power when not playing 3D games. Future versions of Hybrid CrossFire would allow you to switch to low power integrated graphics when you didn't need the performance of your discrete card, thus completely turning off power to the power hungry add-in GPU and relying on integrated graphics for basic video needs (e.g. Windows desktop).

The idea is that you'd get your video output from your integrated GPU, the add-in card would simply act as an accelerator driving data to the output on the motherboard. The future for technologies like Hybrid CrossFire is exciting. Expect to see Hybrid CrossFire with RS780 boards starting in late January for the Chinese market, and by March for the rest of the world.
I wonder what Anand was referring to when he used the word "platform". Is it the drivers, the chipset, the graphics cards or all of the above?

xen
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Post by xen » Fri Mar 28, 2008 12:38 pm

Yes I'm very intersted too. Platform has a heavy sound to it. If it refers to the hybrid crossfire platform, then it will most likely need a revision of the 780g and the 3450, and otherwise the next gen chipset will be the first to carry it. I'm guessing that if a revision happens, it will be introduced as a new model altogether, or maybe like 780gx

Firetech
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Post by Firetech » Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:09 am

Gary Key talks about an upcoming A13 revision of 780G (current is A12) so maybe that will be it:
http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=423

xen
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Post by xen » Sat Mar 29, 2008 5:28 am

A 780g roundup next week on Anand, can't wait.

NX3
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Post by NX3 » Wed Apr 02, 2008 1:22 am

The 3450 and 2400 Radeons can be used in hybrid crossfire. Price wise they are both very cheap. Performance wise the 3450 is a faster card and the better one to match with the 780G. However if you have 2400, it will work and you'll get the improvments from running hyrbird.

xen
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Post by xen » Wed Apr 02, 2008 4:52 am

I know the information is prolly out there, but I'd like to know: if you use a 780g combined with 3450, then will you be able to use both cards in a dual monitor setup?
Last edited by xen on Wed Apr 02, 2008 6:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

nitram_tpr
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Post by nitram_tpr » Wed Apr 02, 2008 5:07 am

You can use both cards to provide a 4 monitor setup. Tom's hardware actually showed this, looked pretty impressive.

What I was doing when I built my system up was to have the LCD TV hooked up to the HDMI from the mobo and a monitor hooked up to the VGA output of the 3450.

The crossfire application shows all the different settings you can have for multiple monitors.

AndrewD
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Post by AndrewD » Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:51 am

Power consumption comparison of the Gigabyte and Asus 780G boards:

http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/ASU ... _/?page=12

Asus is 3W better at idle, 1W better at load.

Anandtech mention the Asus board is 3-phase design whereas Gigabyte is 4-phase. So this could partly explain the higher consumption of the Gigabyte boards both here and for the 690G boards too?

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3279&p=3

Spare Tire
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Post by Spare Tire » Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:02 am

Goldmember wrote:Anandtech said the following in their preview:
Anandtech wrote:The announcement gets even less exciting when you realize that the biggest feature of Hybrid CrossFire, the ability to power down your discrete graphics and only use integrated graphics in non-gaming scenarios, won't be delivered in the first version of the platform. While AMD mentioned that the power savings feature may be something we'll see in 2008, it's definitely not making its way out in the first release.

The power savings potential for Hybrid CrossFire is tremendous; even with the most aggressive power management we see on GPUs today, cards like the Radeon HD 3870 and GeForce 8800 GTS still waste a lot of power when not playing 3D games. Future versions of Hybrid CrossFire would allow you to switch to low power integrated graphics when you didn't need the performance of your discrete card, thus completely turning off power to the power hungry add-in GPU and relying on integrated graphics for basic video needs (e.g. Windows desktop).

The idea is that you'd get your video output from your integrated GPU, the add-in card would simply act as an accelerator driving data to the output on the motherboard. The future for technologies like Hybrid CrossFire is exciting. Expect to see Hybrid CrossFire with RS780 boards starting in late January for the Chinese market, and by March for the rest of the world.
I wonder what Anand was referring to when he used the word "platform". Is it the drivers, the chipset, the graphics cards or all of the above?
Bump for this question.

NX3
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Post by NX3 » Sun Apr 06, 2008 1:41 pm

Its been a long time coming but from my previous postings I finally have a hybrid crossfire score !

690v mobo, ATI HD 2400, Cats 8.2, XP : 1373
780G mobo, IGP, Cats 8.3, XP : 1132
780G mobo, IGP + ATI HD 2400, Cats 8.3 Hybrid crossfire enabled, Vista : 2000'ish
780G mobo, ATI HD 3450, Cats 8.3, Vista : 1692

The new score..........

780G mobo, IGP + ATI HD 3450, Cats 8.3 hotfix Hybrid crossfire enabled, Vista : 1975
(not really any better than the 780g + 2400, same ball park figures.

AndrewD wrote:Power consumption comparison of the Gigabyte and Asus 780G boards:

http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/ASU ... _/?page=12

Asus is 3W better at idle, 1W better at load.

Anandtech mention the Asus board is 3-phase design whereas Gigabyte is 4-phase. So this could partly explain the higher consumption of the Gigabyte boards both here and for the 690G boards too?

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3279&p=3
That's interesting, hopefully someone can shed some light on this. In the 690 world I had a Asus and Gigabyte. For me the Gigabyte was the better board as the asus bios, each release got slower and slower and very fussy about memory.

ryan2215, I've got a 2400 and 3450. The 3450 is faster so its the better for hybrid performance. I don't think you can use the slightly faster 3470 or any higher.

Greg F.
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3470

Post by Greg F. » Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:31 pm

I believe I have seen info to the effect that you SHOULD be able to use a 3470.

nitram_tpr
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Post by nitram_tpr » Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:39 am

Just reading on anandtech and the 780G motherboards as they are now do not support the new 125W TDP CPU's from AMD, these CPU's will kill the motherboards.
Now I know most of the people here at SPCR are all about silence and/or low power useage, but there will always be someone who would want to bang in the most powerful CPU. be warned it will kill your motherboard :(

Read more Here.

NX3
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Post by NX3 » Mon Apr 07, 2008 4:30 am

AndrewD wrote:Power consumption comparison of the Gigabyte and Asus 780G boards:

http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/ASU ... _/?page=12

Asus is 3W better at idle, 1W better at load.

Anandtech mention the Asus board is 3-phase design whereas Gigabyte is 4-phase. So this could partly explain the higher consumption of the Gigabyte boards both here and for the 690G boards too?

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3279&p=3
4-phase voltage regulator v 3-phase "It's more efficient, so it does not heat that much and raises stability of the output voltage" So thats not it...

besonen
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Post by besonen » Mon Apr 07, 2008 11:21 am

one difference between the asus and the gigabyte 780G boards is that the asus board supports ecc memory while the gigabyte board apparently does not.

andyb
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Post by andyb » Mon Apr 07, 2008 3:42 pm

Guys, why are any of you reading anything into Anandtech's "comments".

Please look here.

viewtopic.php?p=406077#406077

Many people seem to have overlooked the fact that this is nothing other than gossip, with no evidence whatsoever.


Andy

dwilso35
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Vista HD Playback

Post by dwilso35 » Fri Apr 11, 2008 5:42 am

I like the look of this board and think i might be finally tempted to splash out on the HTPC ive wanted for ages. The thing is though i notice that all the reviews seem to use Power DVD for the video playback as they have the option of ticking the Hardware Acceleration option.
Does this mean that if i get the HTPC i will be forced to play the HD videos in Power DVD rather than Media Center to offload the work onto the IGP or if i tick the option in Power DVD will Media Center then also offload the work onto the IGP.
I think this is the main worry that is stopping me getting an HTPC now.

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