Finally arrived on-board 1080p!

[lopri]

I was in search of mATX board that's capable of 1080p. (with on-board GPU obviously) Reason is simple: Wanted to build a very very small foot-printed rig.. Not as small as mac-mini, but maybe 1/3 the size of Antec Fusion. So far none of the boards were able to meet the requirement. As you could imagine, gaming is no concern but video playback is. I wanted a flawless playback of 1080p (any codec, any package)

Got the ASUS P5E-VM HDMI and mated with an E8400. Overclocked to 400 FSB (3.60GHz) it under 266 strap and voila! All 1080p contents I threw at, it handled flawlessly. There are areas where quality is less than ideal (saturation, contrast, etc.) but I hope I can calibrate those. I'm just glad that there finally is a board that handles 1080p without the need of a discreete GPU!

Edit: Above is under XP, and taking more time looking at the quality of picture, it is nowhere near the quality of GPU-accelerated HD playback. Obviously under XP it's purely driven by the CPU. In Vista, the on-board GPU actually kicks in, and the quality of pic is close to that of a discrete GPU. CPU usage therefore went much lower. However, not all 1080p playbacks were smooth. About 90% of the time it handled H.264 1080p almost flawlessly, but it can't handle some of the most demanding movies. (And this is @400FSB and with quite a bit extra voltage to the chipset) This is a big SIGH.

 

[benwa73]

Just curious, what case did you end up using? I have gone through several and wondered what the best match for this board was.

 

[lopri]

Didn't pick on a case yet. I wanted to know how capable the on-board GPU is first. Though something like Silverstone LC19 would be nice.

 

[lopri]

BTW I needed to give 1.47~1.49v for north bridge. With less voltages, some files played fine but others showed heavy artifacts. (CPU usage 10~30% for easy files, and up to 60~70% with heavy files) Oh and the default heat sink for the NB is a pure joke. I'm going to replace it with something better.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: lopri
CPU usage 10~30% for easy files, and up to 60~70% with heavy files

Are you sure the onboard GPU is doing the 1080P work? Sounds as if your E8400 is doing all the work.

 

[TheDrake]

I have been looking at this board just recently (today) and does it play HDCP content? I am thinking HD-DVD and Blu-ray movies. That would be perfect as then I wouldnt have much of a need for a video card.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Are you sure ClearVideo is enabled? Most reviews I've seen (playing back AVC MPEG-4 encoded 1080p Blu-ray content) pitch CPU usage at ~30% - and that's for E6850s. 70% CPU usage on a 3.6GHz Wolfdale sounds a bit high.

Or are these some really hardcore 25-30+Mbps H.264 files?

Just found this one link playing back Fantastic Four (an AVC MPEG-4 title)

Edit: TheDrake, yes, the board supports a HDCP-compliant HDMI port.

 

[lopri]

I am not sure about ClearVideo. To be frank I didn't even know about it yet.. But the point I was making is, whether the CPU is doing the work or the GPU is, it is now possible to watch a 1080p content without a discrete GPU - flawlessly. Before, even with a powerful CPU I couldn't play a high bit-rate H.264 1080p files smooth. I'm guessing it's because NV/AMD, having no competition in GPU area, holding back the capability of their on-board GPU via drivers - so that they could sell overpriced 8600s and 2600s. Now they have no choice but to let their on-board GPU be more capable.

I will look into the ClearVideo thingy.

P.S. TheDrake: Yes it plays Blu-Ray via Pioneer BDC-2202 and PowerDVD.

 

[renethx]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: lopri
CPU usage 10~30% for easy files, and up to 60~70% with heavy files

Are you sure the onboard GPU is doing the 1080P work? Sounds as if your E8400 is doing all the work.

Agreed. GMA X3500 has no H.264 decode engine, so decoding task is done solely by CPU. You will get exactly the same playback result as, for example, GIGABYTE GA-G33M-S2H. ClearVideo Technology plays no role here.

BTW the upcoming GeForce 8200 mGPU and AMD 780G chipset will be able to play back BD / HD DVD perfectly even with Athlon 64 single-core chips because of hardware decoder (PureVideo HD Gen 3, UVD). We still need a fast processor (dual-core, say, 2.3GHz) to play back x264 files, though.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Damn, you're right renethx. Just saw the official site - I thought Intel had H.264 support but none for VC-1.

I had it backasswards. 😱

 

[lopri]

OK I take it back.. sigh. The on-board GPU isn't 100% for H.264 1080p under Vista. It was, under XP, with my limited testing. But under Vista I couldn't play all 1080p files completely stutter-free. Sigh again..

BTW, the CPU usage I quoted is under XP. Under Vista, CPU usage rarely goes over 40%. So I think I now get the picture - the GMA 3500 doesn't do shit under XP for HD acceleration, but it *tries to* under Vista. And it sucks eggs.

So now it's becoming clear: A powerful CPU can handle 1080p by itself as long as a GPU doesn't get in the way. Current on-board GPUs doesn't play 1080p clips 100% flawlessly. (deliberately or not) I edited my first post to reflect my findings.