So, I've got the Asus mATX version of the 780g chipset and am having some issues. FIrst, I'm using a 5400+ X2, 4gb of ram, 8.3 drivers, and Vista Home Premium 32.

When I open Vista Media Center, the animation is jerking, stuttering and the menu navigation is really sluggish. If I run it in a windown, then the animation is smooth and menu functionality is normal. I have a tuner card for OTA HD and playback is smooth unless there is something running in the background. However, at all times CPU usage never climbs above 50%. What the heck is going on? Ideas?

Thanks,
Alex

I've having problems getting 3dmark06 to detect the 3450. I had hybrid running with the IGP as the master but 3dmark score was lower than the 3450 on its own haha. Now just using the 3450 re-installed the drivers, rebooted so many times but it says the 3450 can't do shader 2 so it can't run. Where as yesterday it did ! I give up for the moment as I don't know whats going on with 3dmark.

Are you sure XVideo really work? I've just installed Ubuntu 8.04a6 and Catalyst 8.3 on the same board as you have and xdpyinfo says I have xvideo. But xvinfo doesn't, and nor does mplayer or xine.

/Magnus

Have you got the 8.1 drivers? I think Tom's Hardware had to use them to get hybrid xfire working properly.

edit..............

Scan has changed the status on the mobo to Item due today

I'll be putting my order in this afternoon.

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.

Well I've ordered mine and a 3450 from Ebuyer, I'll be building a completely new system, so keep em peeled and I'll post piccies in teh gallery

"Have you got the 8.1 drivers? I think Tom's Hardware had to use them to get hybrid xfire working properly."

Only 8.2 beta and 8.3 offer hybrid crossfire. I had the 3450 and 3200 in crossfire but it was slower that the 3450 on its own. Somethings not quite right, I just think the drivers are mature enough now for the new hardware.

Aero on 3450 has run fine for 2 days with no crashes which is an improvement.

Its only 6 pixels, you could always just set your TV to not scale the picture. I'm sure losing 3 pixels on either side of the screen is better than blurry text.

Like Frank2003 said, comparing Asus to Gigabyte may not be representative of the difference in chipsets. Tom's hardware tested the Gigabyte 780G to be a few Watt less than the Gigabyte 690G. If the Giga 780G is as much a power hog as their 690G is, [that might be the reason the Giga 780G > Asus 690G, and] it might turn out that other manufacturors like Asus will also reach a couple of Watts of power savings with their upcoming 780G board, as compared to their own 690G board. We'll have to wait for the 780G boards to arrive, before anything conclusively can be said about the 780G chipset.

The million-dollar questions - what are you using to connect (HDMI/DVI/VGA) and what TV are you connecting it to?


If possible, this should be done. Posting the TV in question should let us know whether or not it can. And if it can't, we need to start cussing out HDTV makers for not making 1:1 an option on more sets.

Has there been any word from system integrators as to when the 780G/780V will make an appearance?

Yes I'm sure. xvinfo tells me that I have an AVIVO device and mplayer plays all videos just fine. There seems to be some kind of hardware acceleration for H264 videos already as I can play *most* of them without framedrops (so far, only with Apple's "The Happening" trailer @1080p I get some) and an average CPU usage of ~60%. This didn't work with my previous Asus 690G board.

Can that ^ possibly be? Surely the HD3200 core is "lesser" than the HD3450 capability, or at the very best is as capable as, but not more than, the HD3450.

Why would you presume that?

Well, duh, it's a smaller part number! If it's so much better at decoding BR, the 3450 must be obsolete already.

I've gone back to Cats 8.2 but the 3450 still isn't recognised by 3DMark06 or Call Of Duty 4. In reviews online I've seen figures for 3dMark06 so I've no idea how they go it to work. Its a clean install of Vista SP1, Cats 8.3 and 8.2 just don't seem to work quite right but Aero works fine in 3D mode.

I swap the 3450 for the 2900 and 3D stuff works as normal, 3dmark06, Call of duty 4. I just don't understand why the 3450 isn't working properly in certain apps

I thought I had read that on Tom's Hardware they had to use the 8.1's to get Hybrid xfire working.
I am in the process of putting my kit together. I have the same mobo as you, I ordered the same 3450 as you, I have a BE2350 in it as well. Hopefully I'll be firing it up tonight and have some benchies to share.

Only Cats 8.3 or higher have hybrid crossfire. I went back to old Cat drivers just to make the HD3450 work properly. In isolation the HD3450 should score 1600'ish but for my 3dmark06 on Cats 8.2 and 8.3 report the card can't do shader 2 even. However I can enable hybrid crossfire in 8.3 but it scores just lower than 1600 suggesting somethings not right. I have an open ticket with ATI still but its been almost a week and I've not had a responce. Thats why I went back to my HS2400 which works fine with cats 8.2 and 8.3 and works in hyrbrid. It scores a bit lower thats all, all it has a slightly smaller heatsink Asus 2400 v Sapphire 3450 so the 3450 gets a bit warmer. Good luck, report back how you get on.

Well I've put mine all together and she won't post

All the fans fire up, I have put the retail AMD HSF on and the CPU fan fires up. The VFD in the case turns on.
Trouble is the monitor doesn't change state (amber lamp, instead of going green)
I think I'm gonna have to RMA this board
I've taken everything off the board, HD and DVD and tried to boot with just the CPU and memory plugged in but nothing There is no PC speaker so I don't know if there are any warning beeps, or even if this board would give the beeps.

Anyone got any ideas?
Oh, I have also popped the 3450 in to see if the board will post with an add-in card. Oh one other thing, I know the CPU (BE-2350) is a low power CPU but I have left the machine on for about 5 minutes, whipped the HSF off and the CPU is stone cold still.

Don't panic just yet, reset the the CMOS as per the book. I had to do it a couple of times following the bios update. No signs of life but fans operate.
Ok not exactly the same situation but I've had to do that on brand new boards as well. The good news is its powering up.

What PSU have you got ? What memory ? Tried just one stick ?

I didn't get any error code beeps on my 780g where it appeared dead before it came back. Check its mounted ok and not shorting. Double check the front panel header connections.

The CPU won't be stone cold, sounds like you have some power but its not turning on hence the CPU isn't getting warm.

Right I've got her running I tried her with one stick, to be honest I don't think I had the stick in the first memory slot seated properly
She installing now. Hopefully have some benchmarks soon.

How blimming long does Vista take to install? It's been stuck on the Completing installation for over 10 minutes now

Good stuff, phew eh ? hehe....

Vista sat on completing for about 4 hours on mine at which point I gave up and did it again in under 1 hour. This is a common problem I found from googling. The fix was get the sata drivers on a usb memstick (floppy if you like) when you install Vista gives you the option F6 to install the drivers. Follow that, select the driver from the memstick and off it goes and completes much quicker. Vista must have sata drivers in to see the hard drive in the first place but they aren't 100% compatible I guess hence the problem completing. So just feeding Vista on install the proper ones sorted it for me. Then you have the joy of SP1 to get, which I found made things a bit faster and no problems.

Well I have installed XP and was going to do an upgrade, but I installed XP Pro and you can only upgrade to Vista Ultimate, so I'm trying again.
I have set the SATA ports to IDE rather than AHCI, I have also removed one of the memory sticks, I have read of people having issues with installs with 2 sticks in.
Xp wouldn't install till I change the SATA settings.
It's at the epanding files stage so far. If it hangs again I'll do the USB stick trick with the SATA drivers.

If your running the mobo in IDE mode I guess you'll be ok this time. The sata stuff is only needed if your in AHCI mode.

thanks for review.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article814-page1.html alos instead of also
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article807-page10.html defacto instead of de facto


the smart casual gamer would prolly still not even consider a board with integrated gfx. Think the amd software engineers' time would be better served getting the normal drivers crashfree

Cat 8.3 running on a 2400 or 3450 are rock solid since my first postings in 2D and Aero mode. Ignore my previous comment about crashing on those. I've not run the 780G only though for a while to see if its behaving now I've sorted out my system.

How do I get HDMI in Crossfire?
I have got mine all built, currently downloading 3dmark06, so no benchies yet, but I cannot for the life of me get a monitor and my TV hooked up.
I have set the output in BIOS to HDMI, and when I select HDMI on my TV it's blank
The catalyst control panel is detecting a monitor and a TV connected though

In bios you enabled surroundview as well ? you need that on for crossfire to work. You have enabled crossfire in cat control panel ?

What monitors / tvs etc have you got connected to what ?

I've got it working, the HDMI ports (and all the other ports on the motherboard) are disabled when it's in crossfire mode, only the 3450 ports work.
I disabled crossfire and immediately the TV out via HDMI started working.
So much clearer via HDMI that via the normal monitor output

I've now got the SATA DVD drive working, I still have the SATA ports set to IDE mode rather than AHCI.

Some benchies to follow hopefully.

In cross fire you can use either the 780g or 3450 as the master then its ports will work. Its a faff to switch from one to other I found but you can. They best way for power saving I've read is to use the motherboard ports so the 3450 can be powered down when not used. However that didn't really seem to be what happened from the power readings I took. I believe its a software only at the moment and future version of the hardware will implement this.

That's odd; usually you can't write the software until you have the hardware =].