Intel alternative to Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S3H am2 board

fredk · Post by **fredk** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:47 pm

Seems to me that on the cpu front, intel is just a better choice now, particularly for someone like me that keeps their hardware for a long time. More processing power = longer life.

Problem is that I really like the gigabyte board I listed because of the integrated graphics.

This is for an HTPC, but I won't be doing much in the way of hd until players come down a lot in price. The plan was to use ffdshow for scaling and onboard video for pass through to the display.

From what I understand, none of the c2d based solutions have acceptable integrated graphics. HDMI out is a must as the display I am looking at getting is will only do 1080p through HDMI.

Is there anything new on the intel platform integrated graphics front?

Fred

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:29 pm

fredk wrote:From what I understand, none of the c2d based solutions have acceptable integrated graphics. HDMI out is a must as the display I am looking at getting is will only do 1080p through HDMI.

It depends what you mean by acceptable graphics. The Gigabyte G33M-S2H supports DVI/HDMI/SPDIF/HDCP/Firewire and it is rated as supporting 1080P. Iâ€™d suggest doing some research on that board to see how it handles HD Video.

fredk wrote: Is there anything new on the intel platform integrated graphics front?

The board above uses the G33 chipset but there is a G35 chipset due this year which is supposed to be a lot better; Intel always say that though.

If you can wait for AMD to get into gear with Phenom they should have some decent integrated solutions out prior to Phenom showing up. They already have better solutions than Intel, I just mean that they have even better products close to introduction that will support AM2+ and better HD decoding support.
HTPC is an area where AMD still do very well as far as Iâ€™m concerned.

fredk · Post by **fredk** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 12:36 am

It depends what you mean by acceptable graphics

You know, I'm not quite sure what I mean. I do need 1080 support as well as the ability to do a custom size desktop to deal with overscan.

I considered waiting for the am2+ boards to arrive, but I expect that initial releases will be more expensive boards.

I am still on the fence over AMD vis Intel. AMD is also 64 bit. While that does not mean much now, in three years when 4 gigs of ram just isn't enough, it may extend the life of my system.

I will look into the g33 board you suggested.

Fred

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 3:19 am

When I was shopping for a mATX board with an IGP good enough for 1080i HDTV playback, one of the boards I looked at was the Abit F-I90HD. It was the only ATI 690G board that supports Intel C2D. I think it is still is the only one, given the long list of issues (do a search in AVSforum.com if you are interested). It was not my choice given its problems at the time, one of which was the inability to pass audio through the HDMI output.

GnatGoSplat · Post by **GnatGoSplat** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 4:56 am

I have both the AMD 690G and Intel G965. The G965 IGP by FAR blows away the 690G for HTPC use. The only reason the 690G looks better in reviews and benchmarks is because its 3D acceleration is better - it's better for gaming... but anyone who thinks an IGP is good enough for gaming is nuts.

In Vista Media Center, I get acceptable frame rates (over 55fps) on a 1080i HDTV recording with the G965 with either the MS built-in decoder or PowerDVD7 decoder - that's with a Celeron 420 1.6GHz CPU. With the 690G and ANY decoder I tried (PDVD7, MS, the one that comes with AVIVO Transcoder), the 690G has noticeably unacceptable frame rates with an X2 CPU at 1.9GHz (3600+) and is only acceptable at 2.3GHz (4400+). With the latest Intel drivers, the G965 scores 3.9 desktop, 3.8 gaming in the Windows Experience while the 690G scores 3.3 and 3.0 with Catalyst 7.9.

G965 and G33 both support Intel Clear Video, but the G965 supports the full suite of Clear Video features. The G965 easily beats the 690G in image quality as well:
AMD 690G vs. Intel G965
Anandtech: AMD 690G: Performance Review

The only thing better about the 690G is the lower power consumption and gaming performance, which is a joke, because even a cheap Geforce 7100GS is better for gaming than the 690G.

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 5:42 am

GnatGoSplat wrote:With the 690G and ANY decoder I tried (PDVD7, MS, the one that comes with AVIVO Transcoder), the 690G has noticeably unacceptable frame rates with an X2 CPU at 1.9GHz (3600+) and is only acceptable at 2.3GHz (4400+).

That's interesting as my experience with the 690G is completely different under Windows XP.

I have a X2 4000+ (stock 2.1GHz) and I determined that I could get excellent 1080i HDTV recordings to play back on a 1080p HDTV (read: with deinterlacing) at an underclocked 1.6GHz frequency, with CPU headroom to spare. The players I used were VLC with its own decoder and WMP with an old WinDVD 5.0 decoder.

Perhaps what you experienced was driver related?

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 6:46 am

It also depends on the bit rate and quality settings of the footage that you are playing back. The real test of course is blu-ray and HD-DVD playback.

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 8:33 am

smilingcrow wrote:It also depends on the bit rate and quality settings of the footage that you are playing back. The real test of course is blu-ray and HD-DVD playback.

OTA and cable QAM 1080i HDTV sources are MEPG2 encoded at around 18mbps bitrate. I have two 690G boards (Biostar and Gigabyte) and both have no problem playing back these sources at 1.6ghz.

When overclocked to 2.3ghz (from 2.1ghz stock) I could play back original VC1 HD DVD movies from discs (i.e. not the low-bitrate "HD DVD" trailers you find on the net). Now that's some pretty impressive performance for a system with an IGP with middle-of-the-road processor.

GnatGoSplat · Post by **GnatGoSplat** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 11:41 am

DOH! I had a reply typed up, but I guess the DOS attack we suffered got rid of it.

Anyway, yes, it may have been a driver issue, but I tried Catalyst 7.7, 7.8, and 7.9 in both XP and Vista. It seems if it's a driver issue, it's an issue ATI has not fixed in any version. I couldn't get smooth 1080i playback in XP MCE either. My test file is a 1-hour DVR-MS recording of 1080i video from CBS-HD OTA.

It may entirely be a problem with Catalyst compatibility with Media Center. Media Center in XP uses VMR9, in Vista uses EMR. Both are more GPU intensive than Overlay which is available in WMP. I did try PDVD and AVIVO decoders in MCE 2005 as well. No better results. Since my objective is to build an HTPC, Media Center is of primary importance so I never tried WMP. In fact, the 690G has a known "green screen" issue playing HDTV in Media Center which ATI hasn't fixed so it has more problems with MCE than just slow HDTV acceleration.

I didn't try 2.1GHz, it may have been fine in MCE. I only underclocked my 2.3GHz chip via multipliers to 1.9GHz to simulate a 3600+.

fredk · Post by **fredk** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 11:41 am

It also depends on the bit rate and quality settings of the footage that you are playing back. The real test of course is blu-ray and HD-DVD playback.

Been posting in so many places lately I forget what I post where...

The on board graphics is a short term (1-2 yrs) solution until pc based hddvd/bd players are a reasonable price and there are more titles available.

When that happens, I can add a graphics card to handle hd. I am expecting that as we go forward, we will see more and better cards aimed at the hd playback market.

So all I really need the onboard graphics to do is 60fps at 1920x1080. Does the quality of the onboard graphics really matter in this situation?

I also seem to remember that the gigabyte board had very good onboard sound as well. This is probably not that big a deal to me since I will be using the speakers built in to the tv, at least to start with.

Fred

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 12:18 pm

fredk wrote:The on board graphics is a short term (1-2 yrs) solution until pc based hddvd/bd players are a reasonable price and there are more titles available.
When that happens, I can add a graphics card to handle hd. I am expecting that as we go forward, we will see more and better cards aimed at the hd playback market.
So all I really need the onboard graphics to do is 60fps at 1920x1080. Does the quality of the onboard graphics really matter in this situation?

My understanding of this is that currently HD video quality on the PC is in its infancy in terms of offering hardware and software support for features that maximize video quality. This is in particular reference to HD-DVD and Blu-ray and the newer Codecs that they use. In comparison SD MPEG2 is a mature technology.
Provided an IGP supports 1080P and can deliver on that promise I agree that it should offer good enough quality for most people. From limited reading on this area there does seem to be problems with compatibility and driver issues with HD video so it warrants more research than most areas require.

fredk wrote:I also seem to remember that the gigabyte board had very good onboard sound as well. This is probably not that big a deal to me since I will be using the speakers built in to the tv, at least to start with.

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frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 4:03 pm

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fredk · Post by **fredk** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 3:01 am

My understanding of this is that currently HD video quality on the PC is in its infancy in terms of offering hardware and software support for features that maximize video quality.

I agree. I have been thinking about this lately and believe that hd decoding and scaling should end up being done on the graphics card. Nvidea and ATI are already moving down this path. How far they go probably depends on how many cards they sell.

Frank. Intereting link, thanks.

I think I need to understand the components/software involved before I go any further. If I understand correctly, to get from the disk to the display, the movie needs to be uncompressed/decoded, deinterlaced (if its interlaced content) scaled and tweeked (post processing).

Is this typically all done in one package? For instance, if I do use ffdshow, is this all handled by the program? Alternatively with the gigabyte board, would/could it all be handled by the graphics chipset?

Fred

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:39 am

We will see better support for HD hardware acceleration in the video card as HD sources (both broadcast and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD) become more commonly available. To wit, video cards based on the new ATI 2400 and 2600 chipsets can accelerate HD videos encoded in mpeg2, VC-1 and H.264 (all are required by both BD and HD-DVD specs).

I recently tested a low-end 2400 based board. Using a system with BE-2350 underclocked to 1Ghz (idle clock), I was able to play back 1080i HDTV (mpeg2) video recordings on a 1080p HDTV at 60% CPU utilization. I'm guessing with boards like these, it may even be possible for ye olde Pentium-3 system to play HD!