Bet you thought you'd escaped my pestering this time around hey Bindi :D:):D
First off awesome review!
Few questions and my initial thoughts.
It's a shame they've taken a step back by omitting a TV out & only allowing one digital out at a time which makes me wonder what else might have taken a step back. For example is the dvi connection still dual-link?
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To not bottleneck these new needs, the interlink bandwidth has also been doubled thanks to the upgrade to PCI-Express 2.0 for the pair of PCI-Express lane interconnects.
Although the 780G northbridge has pcie2.0 the SB700 only has pcie1.1 according to techreport. It's nice to see that the sata controller in the sb700 seems to be improved over the one in the sb600. Would also have liked to have seen some usb transfer tests to see if that's been improved as well given that amd are selling that aspect as being better than the sb600.
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It's the UVD version from the HD 3000 series.
According to hothardware the UVD in the 780G is "enhanced" as it has silicon for accelerated mpeg2 whereas the previous gpus used their programmable shaders to do it. It's a shame you didn't test mpeg 2 to compare the UVD in the 690G to the enhanced UVD in the 780G.
It was very nice to see that hardware acceleration also works for files played from the hard drive and not just from optical media. Nice tests Bindi.
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I had a completely different experience with HQV, I can't speak for the tech report because it's an interpretation system not a number thrown out like 3DMark.
I looked at your respective test setups and turns out that while you guys used the 8.3RC3 drivers they used the 8.47 Beta drivers. Perhaps this might explain the differences? Having said that you both used the 15.7.3 intel drivers so somethings up. I appreciate your comment that it's subjective but the scores are VERY different.
One thing I really liked about your 690G & 7050 reviews was that they tested the chipsets both using their built in gpu and a discrete gpu. I liked that because it showed what performance impact (non gaming) using UMA had over having a discrete gpu with a local frame buffer. The only issue was that those tests were done with XP and I was interested to see what impact the use of aero in vista has. Unfortunately this was not done this time around so perhaps it's something you could look at when you test the hybrid crossfire functionality. For example test the IGP, IGP+discrete GPU in Xfire and discrete GPU with IGP disabled.
Finally some comments about Hypertransport 3. According to the techreport "HyperTransport bandwidth is apparently so important to the Radeon HD 3200 that AMD recommends a 1.8GHz linkcurrently available only with Phenomto make the most of the graphics core. The 3200's post-processing engine for high-definition video playback actually requires the 1.8GHz HT link that Phenom provides." This opens up a can of worms as the only test I've seen that combines a phenom and the 780G is the 3DMARK06 test mentioned above by K20. Clearly post processing in EVERY current GPU is in some way dependent on horsepower namely shading power and memory bandwidth so some tests with a phenom to allow the 780G access to more memory bandwidth would be nice. The HD-HQV scores I've seen over the last year for a variety of gpus certainly shows the above to be true.
Originally Posted by Renoir Bet you thought you'd escaped my pestering this time around hey Bindi :D:):D
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOES
I'm actually not going to read it right now because I don't want work production to grind to a complete halt :P so I'll get back to you later.
EDIT: FS, now I've just read half of it :p Thanks for the comments btw :):)
Discrete versus IGP - yes, it will be done with Hybrid like you say. Thing is testing in XP only needed to be done once, testing in Vista requires 3+++ times to get accurate and consistent results. Double that for IGP and Discrete, and driver changes for a pre-production product and I'm well out of time.
As much as I completely respect Scott, Geoff and TR for their awesome reviews I'd like to see where the Intel is failing and if ever possible sit down and HQV with them (not counting the fact we're opposite sides of a big pond and big land mass). Intel claim a perfect score and I got one - I can't say more than that. I sat down and did all three GPUs originally together and the G35 is absolutely better quality than the 780G. In both mine and Tim's opinion.
The 690G is basic acceleration - and quite frankly no one uses MPEG-2 for HD anymore. Only a smattering of early disks do that. MPEG-2 DVD is what HQV *is* - it's 480p blown up to 1080p.
SB700 - PCI-E x1's might be 1.1s, but the two connecting the nb-sb are 2.0's. I had that confirmed by a techie at AMD. Unfortunately I think TR has its wires crossed (or I do?) but I was told very explicitly when I asked that it was "2x2.0 which is equivalent to 4x1.1". I wanted to test USB and SATA but we've nothing really available to push both atm :(
I didn't know that about HT3, although it sort of defeats the point of a low power system to drop a whopping great 4 core in there. I'll come back to it with Tri-Core I think.
DVI is dual link.
TV out, well, for £26 you can get a HD 3450 which has it or for £25-45 you could get a 690G which has it if SD is all you're going to use.
I'm actually not going to read it right now because I don't want work production to grind to a complete halt :P
Hehe that made my day!
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Discrete versus IGP - yes, it will be done with Hybrid like you say.
Excellent, can't wait!
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Thing is testing in XP only needed to be done once, testing in Vista requires 3+++ times to get accurate and consistent results. Double that for IGP and Discrete, and driver changes for a pre-production product and I'm well out of time.
By all accounts vista does indeed add a lot of hassle. I guess future OSs are only gonna get harder to benchmark with unfortunately.
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As much as I completely respect Scott, Geoff and TR for their awesome reviews I'd like to see where the Intel is failing and if ever possible sit down and HQV with them (not counting the fact we're opposite sides of a big pond and big land mass). Intel claim a perfect score and I got one - I can't say more than that. I sat down and did all three GPUs originally together and the G35 is absolutely better quality than the 780G. In both mine and Tim's opinion.
I guess we'll just have to wait for new driver releases and for other sites to do the tests as well to give us a better picture of what is going on.
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DVI is dual link.
Nice.
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TV out, well, for £26 you can get a HD 3450 which has it or for £25-45 you could get a 690G which has it if SD is all you're going to use.
Fair enough, I guess that's the nature of progress.
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SB700 - PCI-E x1's might be 1.1s, but the two connecting the nb-sb are 2.0's. I had that confirmed by a techie at AMD. Unfortunately I think TR has its wires crossed (or I do?) but I was told very explicitly when I asked that it was "2x2.0 which is equivalent to 4x1.1".
Interesting. I'm inclined to believe that you're right given how long they've been working on it and that it is launched with a pcie2 northbridge.
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I wanted to test USB and SATA but we've nothing really available to push both atm
Well the winrar tests aren't a bad test of the sata controller (and show an improvement over the sb600) but the more benchies the better I suppose. As for USB not to worry I'm sure I can find some results elsewhere in the meantime.
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MPEG-2 DVD is what HQV *is* - it's 480p blown up to 1080p.
Indeed but I was only really referring to high bit rate HD Mpeg2 but as you say:
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quite frankly no one uses MPEG-2 for HD anymore. Only a smattering of early disks do that.
You are of course correct and my curiosity of this "Enhanced" feature of the UVD in the 780G is more an academic one rather than having a lot of practical value. Therefore in hindsight scrap my previous request for testing this aspect as there are more important things to consider namely:
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I didn't know that about HT3, although it sort of defeats the point of a low power system to drop a whopping great 4 core in there. I'll come back to it with Tri-Core I think.
You're quite right and my interest is merely to get a preview of what effect HT3 will have for when cheaper & lower power phenoms arrive. No harm in getting a preview right? I'm certainly happy to wait for you to get a tri core before you investigate this issue and I certainly look forward to it!
At first I thought it was only post processing (HQV, HD-HQV) that was affected by the performance of the GPU (clock speed, shader power, memory bandwidth etc) but looking at the TechReport blu-ray tests it seems that the performance of the UVD might also be affected by those factors. Interesting tidbit I thought I'd share. Seems there may still be a few reasons to go for a discrete GPU for a HTPC instead of an IGP as the cpu use will be lower and post processing likely better. Obviously it would be nice to see some more tests in this regard in the future especially as new drivers come out and the 780G has access to more memory bandwidth courtesy of a phenom cpu's enabling of HT3.
Found this tidbit in the comments section of the techreport by Geoff Gasior who says "AMD says the 780G can do DVI and HDMI at the same time, but also that Gigabyte's implementation in the GA-MA78GM-S2H doesn't allow for it." Great clear as mud!!!
I wish that they would just put their slideshow on their website, or that reviewers would just post ALL of the slides in their reviews. As it is I'm left collecting slides from all over the web and still being left with an incomplete collection (no I don't have an obsession with slides I merely find them a very efficient and accurate way of transferring information).
We did confirm that splitting the single PCI-Express 2.0 x16 lane into two x8s for CrossFire will work, however, it depends on the cost given the fact there are also readily available, inexpensive alternatives like the AMD 770X and 790X.
Just nitpicking but the 770X doesn't exist as the die (770) is the same one used in the 790X (please confirm this), the only difference between the 770 and the 790(X) is auto Xpress (+25% speed boost for PCIe, HyperTransport and RAM?)
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Originally Posted by Mankz. Now all we need is a 780G chipset on a 775 Board witha 1,333 Fsb :p
Don't you mean a Core 2 in AM2+ :p :p.
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Originally Posted by Renoir
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Originally Posted by Bindibadgi TV out, well, for £26 you can get a HD 3450 which has it or for £25-45 you could get a 690G which has it if SD is all you're going to use.
Fair enough, I guess that's the nature of progress.
Lets examine the nature of progress shall we: 690G
VGA
Single-link TDMS (HDMI) ----------\
-----------------------------------Only one can use HDCP at a time
Dual-Link TDMS (Dual-link DVI) ----/
TV-out
(and LVDS, used in laptops, but I'm not sure where that fits in)
with any 2 of those 4 being used simultaneously.
780G
VGA
DVI/HDMI
(DisplayPort)
With the VGA being used with one TDMS (I don't have a clue how DisplayPort fits in)
So the 780G is almost certainly smaller and as such cheaper to produce and in return the customer loses the ability to use a DVI monitor while outputting to a HDTV and can no longer output to a SDTV. Oh and gets 2 more PCIe lanes and PCIe 2.0 support, that makes up for it then .
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Originally Posted by Bindibadgi SB700 - PCI-E x1's might be 1.1s, but the two connecting the nb-sb are 2.0's. I had that confirmed by a techie at AMD. Unfortunately I think TR has its wires crossed (or I do?) but I was told very explicitly when I asked that it was "2x2.0 which is equivalent to 4x1.1".
Well that doesn't make much sense. If everything in the southbridge (excluding the BIOS, Super IO, audio and any other 'small' links) was going full pelt then 2.19 GB/s would be sent to the NB requiring a x4 PCIe 2.0 link (which would fall short at 2 GB/s), or is the lack of RAID 5 (and SATA port multiplier?) a built in way to ensure this never happens.
Just ask AMD:
What is the NB-SB bandwidth each way?
What does the RS in RS780 stands for? Radeon Squirrel?
Does the SB700 have 2 EHCI (USB 2.0) controllers?
Does the SB700 have 2 1.0 or 2 1.1 USB ports? (yes, I've seen the nice looking block diagram)
Why is there an asterisk on the 780G block diagram (top left)?
K20, my comment about the nature of progress was mainly aimed at the lack of legacy connections (SD). As for supporting only 1 digital output at a time that is certainly not progress but rather a step backwards.
Originally Posted by Bindibadgi It's the UVD version from the HD 3000 series.
According to hothardware the UVD in the 780G is "enhanced" as it has silicon for accelerated mpeg2 whereas the previous gpus used their programmable shaders to do it. It's a shame you didn't test mpeg 2 to compare the UVD in the 690G to the enhanced UVD in the 780G.
I believe this UVD MPEG-2 debate can be explained by the AMD 7-Series Innovations slide (which also states that the SB700 is PCIe Gen 2) and by this snippet from the AnandTech Radeon HD 38x0 review:
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Originally Posted by Anandtech The key features of UVD are full decode support for both VC-1 and H.264. MPEG-2 decode is also supported, but the entropy decode step is not performed for MPEG-2 video in hardware.
indicating that the 780G has entropy decode for MPEG-2.
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Originally Posted by Renoir At first I thought it was only post processing (HQV, HD-HQV) that was affected by the performance of the GPU (clock speed, shader power, memory bandwidth etc) but looking at the TechReport blu-ray tests it seems that the performance of the UVD might also be affected by those factors. Interesting tidbit I thought I'd share. Seems there may still be a few reasons to go for a discrete GPU for a HTPC instead of an IGP as the cpu use will be lower and post processing likely better. Obviously it would be nice to see some more tests in this regard in the future especially as new drivers come out and the 780G has access to more memory bandwidth courtesy of a phenom cpu's enabling of HT3. and local memory thanks to the LFB being implemented.
The IGP performance can probably be improved if overclocked to say... 1Ghz.
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Originally Posted by Renoir K20, my comment about the nature of progress was mainly aimed at the lack of legacy connections (SD). As for supporting only 1 digital output at a time that is certainly not progress but rather a step backwards.
Okay sorry Renoir I didn't mean to direct that towards you, though reading it I can understand why you might have thought I did. I merely meant to compare the 690G and 780G as output capabilities are concerned.
I believe this UVD MPEG-2 debate can be explained by the AMD 7-Series Innovations slide (which also states that the SB700 is PCIe Gen 2) and by this snippet from the AnandTech Radeon HD 38x0 review:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anandtech
The key features of UVD are full decode support for both VC-1 and H.264. MPEG-2 decode is also supported, but the entropy decode step is not performed for MPEG-2 video in hardware.
indicating that the 780G has entropy decode for MPEG-2.
Nice find as regards the entropy decode info! SB700 clearly has pcie gen2 according to that slide so not sure why techreport think it doesn't. Yet more support for the idea of providing all the slides in one place.
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The IGP performance can probably be improved if overclocked to say... 1Ghz.
Yeah and just like HT3 I would love to see what effect the clock speed has on the performance of the UVD and in particular on post processing.
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Okay sorry Renoir I didn't mean to direct that towards you, though reading it I can understand why you might have thought I did. I merely meant to compare the 690G and 780G as output capabilities are concerned.
Just spoke to a friend who is looking to build a media PC for his parents. I have recommended the 780G board as reviewed here by BIT, but what I need to know is about which add-in card would allow him to do audio over the HDMI link? As it would be better to do it this way than to have his mum turn the amp on before watching anything.
Also how would this be done? most of the HD3450's dont have a HDMI connector on them, so would it use an adaptor cable from the DVI socket?
Andy, the 780G includes an audio controller and supports audio over the hdmi port on the motherboard. It only supports 2 channel pcm and dolby digital/dts but it sounds like that's not a problem. No need for an add in card. Hope that helps.
I recently picked up the ASUS board with the 780G chipset for a HTPC I'm building. I was trying to get the Gigabyte one that was reviewed here, but couldn't find anyone stocking it over here in CH. In hindsight, I should of waited till someone was stocking the Gigabyte board, because although the ASUS board has S/PDIF on board, they don't supply a S/PDIF panel with an optical and coaxial connectors. ARGH! :(
I have been searching for a while now, and can not for the life of me find a place to buy one. So if any of you lovely readers have one lying around (I'll pay you for it) or know where I can pick one up from, it would be awesome.
No one supplies an S/PDIF PCI bracket unfortunately, and I've never found where to buy one separately either. The S/PDIF connectors onboard are often supplied because Nvidia graphics cards require S/PDIF passthrough for HDMI.
Originally Posted by NCIX Forums there is no spdif out connector on the board I had to make one from a power switch connector from old computer case and stereo rca cable
pin 1 is 5v+ not needed pin 3 ground pin 2 spdif out I used red rca jack
pin 3 connects outer wire of rca wire pin 2 connects red wire
the 5V on pin 1 is for if you get proper header connector
for optical out power be careful if you make a cable you self
do not short out the 5v with any other pin
That's from a Biostar AM2 7050 board. Just check the motherboard manual that they're in the same order :)
Thanks for your help guys, I might look into making one since it looks to be a lot cheaper than buying one.
However I have done a lot of googling over the last hour and found a couple of options. Both ASUS and Gigabyte do make the brackets (although I read somewhere that ASUS don't anymore because of lead content issues and I can't find it on their website). The part numbers are "SPDIF OUT/COA+OPT" and "12CR1-1SPOUT-12" for ASUS and Gigabyte respectively. The Gigabyte panel has a different pin layout, but the connector can be changed without a problem. I haven't found any online shops selling them, but you can find them on eBay.
For people looking at the current ASUS and Gigabyte options and that need digital audio out, then don't make my mistake, buy the Gigabyte board. :)
Still, if anyone has one lying around that they don't need, then let me know.
I was enthusiast about 780G for a "living room PC", until I found out that you can't use both DVI and HDMI at the same time.:(
Because I was thinking of a scenario, where you could watch a movie on TV via HDMI and at the same time another user would browse the internet on a monitor via DVI.
Or, at least one would use the DVI output to setup everything for watching the movie and then just go watch the TV (HDMI). But if I got it right you actually have to use the BIOS to switch from DVI to HDMI. Kinda clumsy.
So I'm wondering... what are my options for using a TV and a computer monitor with 780G?
I know one is to use a monitor with VGA. But do all the monitors have a VGA input? If not, can you use a converter VGA->DVI, just to connect it?
All this is compromise, tho, because DVI>VGA.
So I was thinking of buying a separate video card. I'd connect a DVI monitor to the card and I'd use the HDMI on board for the TV. Is this even possible? Can both on board and separate video cards be used?
Can I disable on board video and use on board HDMI? (Probably a stupid question, but what the hell...)
Could I at least take advantage of the 780G-ish low CPU usage when playing HD video even if I used a separate video card?
Thanks. I kinda expected that. But I don't like VGA.
My question remains about using the separate video card. What are my options then?
If I cant use the separate card+onboard then I'd try to get one that has a DVI + HDMI output. But would I still benefit from 780G's low CPU consumption while playing videos?
Seperate card should be OK, but some systems have issues when you combine them (or at least older ones used to, not sure how relevant it is now though).
One thing you could do is just invest in a dual DVI + HDMI card (probably something like this for £65) and use that exclusively to do it, though admitidly it does kind of defeat the idea of using a 780G :p
Comments 51 to 75 of 80
First off awesome review!
Few questions and my initial thoughts.
It's a shame they've taken a step back by omitting a TV out & only allowing one digital out at a time which makes me wonder what else might have taken a step back. For example is the dvi connection still dual-link?
It was very nice to see that hardware acceleration also works for files played from the hard drive and not just from optical media. Nice tests Bindi.
One thing I really liked about your 690G & 7050 reviews was that they tested the chipsets both using their built in gpu and a discrete gpu. I liked that because it showed what performance impact (non gaming) using UMA had over having a discrete gpu with a local frame buffer. The only issue was that those tests were done with XP and I was interested to see what impact the use of aero in vista has. Unfortunately this was not done this time around so perhaps it's something you could look at when you test the hybrid crossfire functionality. For example test the IGP, IGP+discrete GPU in Xfire and discrete GPU with IGP disabled.
Finally some comments about Hypertransport 3. According to the techreport "HyperTransport bandwidth is apparently so important to the Radeon HD 3200 that AMD recommends a 1.8GHz linkcurrently available only with Phenomto make the most of the graphics core. The 3200's post-processing engine for high-definition video playback actually requires the 1.8GHz HT link that Phenom provides." This opens up a can of worms as the only test I've seen that combines a phenom and the 780G is the 3DMARK06 test mentioned above by K20. Clearly post processing in EVERY current GPU is in some way dependent on horsepower namely shading power and memory bandwidth so some tests with a phenom to allow the 780G access to more memory bandwidth would be nice. The HD-HQV scores I've seen over the last year for a variety of gpus certainly shows the above to be true.
Again fantastic review Bindi! Keep it up.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOES
I'm actually not going to read it right now because I don't want work production to grind to a complete halt :P so I'll get back to you later.
EDIT: FS, now I've just read half of it :p Thanks for the comments btw :):)
Discrete versus IGP - yes, it will be done with Hybrid like you say. Thing is testing in XP only needed to be done once, testing in Vista requires 3+++ times to get accurate and consistent results. Double that for IGP and Discrete, and driver changes for a pre-production product and I'm well out of time.
As much as I completely respect Scott, Geoff and TR for their awesome reviews I'd like to see where the Intel is failing and if ever possible sit down and HQV with them (not counting the fact we're opposite sides of a big pond and big land mass). Intel claim a perfect score and I got one - I can't say more than that. I sat down and did all three GPUs originally together and the G35 is absolutely better quality than the 780G. In both mine and Tim's opinion.
The 690G is basic acceleration - and quite frankly no one uses MPEG-2 for HD anymore. Only a smattering of early disks do that. MPEG-2 DVD is what HQV *is* - it's 480p blown up to 1080p.
SB700 - PCI-E x1's might be 1.1s, but the two connecting the nb-sb are 2.0's. I had that confirmed by a techie at AMD. Unfortunately I think TR has its wires crossed (or I do?) but I was told very explicitly when I asked that it was "2x2.0 which is equivalent to 4x1.1". I wanted to test USB and SATA but we've nothing really available to push both atm :(
I didn't know that about HT3, although it sort of defeats the point of a low power system to drop a whopping great 4 core in there. I'll come back to it with Tri-Core I think.
DVI is dual link.
TV out, well, for £26 you can get a HD 3450 which has it or for £25-45 you could get a 690G which has it if SD is all you're going to use.
At first I thought it was only post processing (HQV, HD-HQV) that was affected by the performance of the GPU (clock speed, shader power, memory bandwidth etc) but looking at the TechReport blu-ray tests it seems that the performance of the UVD might also be affected by those factors. Interesting tidbit I thought I'd share. Seems there may still be a few reasons to go for a discrete GPU for a HTPC instead of an IGP as the cpu use will be lower and post processing likely better. Obviously it would be nice to see some more tests in this regard in the future especially as new drivers come out and the 780G has access to more memory bandwidth courtesy of a phenom cpu's enabling of HT3.
Found this tidbit in the comments section of the techreport by Geoff Gasior who says "AMD says the 780G can do DVI and HDMI at the same time, but also that Gigabyte's implementation in the GA-MA78GM-S2H doesn't allow for it." Great clear as mud!!!
Just nitpicking but the 770X doesn't exist as the die (770) is the same one used in the 790X (please confirm this), the only difference between the 770 and the 790(X) is auto Xpress (+25% speed boost for PCIe, HyperTransport and RAM?)
Don't you mean a Core 2 in AM2+ :p :p.
Lets examine the nature of progress shall we:
690G
VGA
Single-link TDMS (HDMI) ----------\
-----------------------------------Only one can use HDCP at a time
Dual-Link TDMS (Dual-link DVI) ----/
TV-out
(and LVDS, used in laptops, but I'm not sure where that fits in)
with any 2 of those 4 being used simultaneously.
780G
VGA
DVI/HDMI
(DisplayPort)
With the VGA being used with one TDMS (I don't have a clue how DisplayPort fits in)
So the 780G is almost certainly smaller and as such cheaper to produce and in return the customer loses the ability to use a DVI monitor while outputting to a HDTV and can no longer output to a SDTV. Oh and gets 2 more PCIe lanes and PCIe 2.0 support, that makes up for it then .
Well that doesn't make much sense. If everything in the southbridge (excluding the BIOS, Super IO, audio and any other 'small' links) was going full pelt then 2.19 GB/s would be sent to the NB requiring a x4 PCIe 2.0 link (which would fall short at 2 GB/s), or is the lack of RAID 5 (and SATA port multiplier?) a built in way to ensure this never happens.
Just ask AMD:
What is the NB-SB bandwidth each way?
What does the RS in RS780 stands for? Radeon Squirrel?
Does the SB700 have 2 EHCI (USB 2.0) controllers?
Does the SB700 have 2 1.0 or 2 1.1 USB ports? (yes, I've seen the nice looking block diagram)
Why is there an asterisk on the 780G block diagram (top left)?
I believe this UVD MPEG-2 debate can be explained by the AMD 7-Series Innovations slide (which also states that the SB700 is PCIe Gen 2) and by this snippet from the AnandTech Radeon HD 38x0 review:
The IGP performance can probably be improved if overclocked to say... 1Ghz.
Okay sorry Renoir I didn't mean to direct that towards you, though reading it I can understand why you might have thought I did. I merely meant to compare the 690G and 780G as output capabilities are concerned.
Also how would this be done? most of the HD3450's dont have a HDMI connector on them, so would it use an adaptor cable from the DVI socket?
Thanks.
will it
blendfit?I recently picked up the ASUS board with the 780G chipset for a HTPC I'm building. I was trying to get the Gigabyte one that was reviewed here, but couldn't find anyone stocking it over here in CH. In hindsight, I should of waited till someone was stocking the Gigabyte board, because although the ASUS board has S/PDIF on board, they don't supply a S/PDIF panel with an optical and coaxial connectors. ARGH! :(
I have been searching for a while now, and can not for the life of me find a place to buy one. So if any of you lovely readers have one lying around (I'll pay you for it) or know where I can pick one up from, it would be awesome.
Cheers
No one supplies an S/PDIF PCI bracket unfortunately, and I've never found where to buy one separately either. The S/PDIF connectors onboard are often supplied because Nvidia graphics cards require S/PDIF passthrough for HDMI.
That's from a Biostar AM2 7050 board. Just check the motherboard manual that they're in the same order :)
However I have done a lot of googling over the last hour and found a couple of options. Both ASUS and Gigabyte do make the brackets (although I read somewhere that ASUS don't anymore because of lead content issues and I can't find it on their website). The part numbers are "SPDIF OUT/COA+OPT" and "12CR1-1SPOUT-12" for ASUS and Gigabyte respectively. The Gigabyte panel has a different pin layout, but the connector can be changed without a problem. I haven't found any online shops selling them, but you can find them on eBay.
For people looking at the current ASUS and Gigabyte options and that need digital audio out, then don't make my mistake, buy the Gigabyte board. :)
Still, if anyone has one lying around that they don't need, then let me know.
Cheers
Because I was thinking of a scenario, where you could watch a movie on TV via HDMI and at the same time another user would browse the internet on a monitor via DVI.
Or, at least one would use the DVI output to setup everything for watching the movie and then just go watch the TV (HDMI). But if I got it right you actually have to use the BIOS to switch from DVI to HDMI. Kinda clumsy.
So I'm wondering... what are my options for using a TV and a computer monitor with 780G?
I know one is to use a monitor with VGA. But do all the monitors have a VGA input? If not, can you use a converter VGA->DVI, just to connect it?
All this is compromise, tho, because DVI>VGA.
So I was thinking of buying a separate video card. I'd connect a DVI monitor to the card and I'd use the HDMI on board for the TV. Is this even possible? Can both on board and separate video cards be used?
Can I disable on board video and use on board HDMI? (Probably a stupid question, but what the hell...)
Could I at least take advantage of the 780G-ish low CPU usage when playing HD video even if I used a separate video card?
My question remains about using the separate video card. What are my options then?
If I cant use the separate card+onboard then I'd try to get one that has a DVI + HDMI output. But would I still benefit from 780G's low CPU consumption while playing videos?
One thing you could do is just invest in a dual DVI + HDMI card (probably something like this for £65) and use that exclusively to do it, though admitidly it does kind of defeat the idea of using a 780G :p
edit: when the post i was commenting on gets deleted on i get confused, i would clearly never agree with dougedey
LIES ALL LIES!