h264 High-Definition Playback

For h264 playback we again used PowerDVD Ultra and played the files from a hard drive instead of disc. The 720p trailer we used was for the movie, Fantastic 4, with a bit-rate of 6,217kbps and two channel AAC sound at 189kbps. For 1080p playback we used the Serenity trailer which is encoded at a bit-rate of 7,998Kbps and two channel AAC sound at 192Kbps.



The Asus P5E-VM HDMI with Intel G35 chipset comes out trumps here – with consistently lower minimum CPU and overall lower average CPU playback. The MSI K9AGM3-FIH with AMD 690G still does very well, especially at 1080p compared to the Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H with Nvidia GeForce 7100 which has an appreciably higher minimum CPU usage.

MPEG-4 (AVI) 720p High-Definition Playback

For MPEG-4 (AVI) playback we again used PowerDVD Ultra and again played the files from a hard drive instead of disc. The 720p trailer we used was for the movie, Ray, with a bit-rate of 3,336kbps in DivX 5 and two channel MP3 sound at 191kbps. For 1080p playback we used the Elephant Dreams movie-short which is encoded at a bit-rate of 9,998kbps and six channel AC3 sound at 448kbps.



While at 720p playback the Gigabyte/Nvidia combination works out best, with lower CPU usage than either the other two, the Asus/Intel board is not far behind. While the Asus/Intel shows a drop between 720p and 1080p of both average and minimum CPU usage, we must remember this is because two different files are being used and handled differently. In the same way, the MSI/AMD combination performs pretty uniformly across the board.

WMV9HD Playback

For WMV9HD playback we again used PowerDVD Ultra and again played the files from a hard drive instead of disc. The 720p trailer we used was for the movie, Doom 3, with a bit-rate of 6,790kbps and two channel WMA3 sound at 440kbps. For 1080p playback we used the The Living Sea trailer which is encoded at a bit-rate of 9,847kbps and six channel WMA3 sound at 384kbps.



All the boards are again fully capable of playing back both 720p and 1080p WMV9HD content, with the Gigabyte board edging out slightly ahead of the Asus, but both are around 10 percent better than the MSI on average and both have a far lower minimum CPU usage.