Hybrid gaphics question

[perdomot]

I've been looking to find a chart or benchmark that tells you more or less what an ATI 3450 card in a hybrid graphics set up is equal to. Anyone know? Curious as to what discrete card it matches up with.

 

[perdomot]

Anybody got an idea of a performance match?

 

[perdomot]

bump

 

[Sphexi]

Rather than start a new thread, I'm just going to hijack this one.

I've got somewhat of a similar question: I'm running a HD 2600 Pro right now, which as I understand it has 120 stream processors and 128-bit memory interface, 256MB of memory, all that lovely jazz. What it does not have though, is HDMI output, which I'd like to have (with the audio included). Also, it's the AGP version of the board, which is hell with drivers straight from ATI, as they don't include the board in their driver packs without you having to hack the MSI file to bits.

I was thinking of getting a nice new Gigabyte G38 board, with the IGP 3200 built-in, and maybe a 3470 to go with it in Hybrid mode, but from what I can see both the 3200 and the 3470 are MUCH lower end than the 2600 in terms of memory bandwidth, stream processors, and overall power. Realistically it's going in my HTPC and will mostly be used for movies and TV viewing, but now and then I'd like to fire up a game on the 46" LCD and have some fun with the kids.

Any chance in the future ATI/AMD is going to support Hybrid with anything more than low-end cards, or am I better off simply upgrading to an Intel board with a 8600/8800 and going DVI -> HDMI output?

 

[Sphexi]

Bump for the evening crew

 

[vgkarthik88]

perdomot : what board do u plan to pair the 3450 in HCF with? is it a 780G or the soon to come 790GX. if ur planning to use a 780G expect about 80% scaling. with a 790GX it will be much lower ( because the IGP is faster than it, the IGP has to scale down to Xfire with the card. for 790GX use a 3470 ) . If you want slides im sure reviewers have them. i just dont rem any exact ones to give you. but overall its 80-85% in games.

Sphexi : if you only plan to watch movies with a HTPC, i would suggest holding out for the 790GX. its got 3300 IGP and its considerably faster than the 3200. pair this up with a 3470 and u can game on the same level as a 3670 or so. decent mid range performance. if ur keen on HDMI, look for a 790GX with HDMI out.

 

[Sphexi]

Originally posted by: vgkarthik88
perdomot : what board do u plan to pair the 3450 in HCF with? is it a 780G or the soon to come 790GX. if ur planning to use a 780G expect about 80% scaling. with a 790GX it will be much lower ( because the IGP is faster than it, the IGP has to scale down to Xfire with the card. for 790GX use a 3470 ) . If you want slides im sure reviewers have them. i just dont rem any exact ones to give you. but overall its 80-85% in games.

Sphexi : if you only plan to watch movies with a HTPC, i would suggest holding out for the 790GX. its got 3300 IGP and its considerably faster than the 3200. pair this up with a 3470 and u can game on the same level as a 3670 or so. decent mid range performance. if ur keen on HDMI, look for a 790GX with HDMI out.

I don't plan on upgrading quite yet, I just got the TV, can't be spending lots of money right now. Even then, why wouldn't they be able to make it compatible with some of their better products? Why sacrifice performance just to get HDMI w/audio?

 

[vgkarthik88]

Sphexi, if your question is why is hybrid Crossfire only allowed no the low end cards, its a drawback of the way that crossfire works. the rendering method is AFR, where each card renders the odd or even frames. if u had a fast card doing odd frames and a slow IGP doing the even ones, every even fram will take ages to render. that will slow down the whole thing. so u can only effectively xfire cards of similar speeds. HDMI isnt supported on higher end cards, since the 'gaming' crowd is more likely to have multiple DVI monitors. for the HDMI crowd simply get a $5 HDMI to DVI adapter.

 

[Sphexi]

Originally posted by: vgkarthik88
Sphexi, if your question is why is hybrid Crossfire only allowed no the low end cards, its a drawback of the way that crossfire works. the rendering method is AFR, where each card renders the odd or even frames. if u had a fast card doing odd frames and a slow IGP doing the even ones, every even fram will take ages to render. that will slow down the whole thing. so u can only effectively xfire cards of similar speeds. HDMI isnt supported on higher end cards, since the 'gaming' crowd is more likely to have multiple DVI monitors. for the HDMI crowd simply get a $5 HDMI to DVI adapter.

So I'm better off getting a higher-end card and not worrying about HDMI. I'd like to have the integrated audio with it that you can use with the 780s at least, but not a huge deal I guess.