The IGP Chronicles Part 3: NVIDIA's GeForce 9300
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Gary Key on October 15, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Blu-ray Power Consumption
Since we're dealing with an Intel platform from NVIDIA, the Cool'n'Quiet issues we mentioned in our previous article don't apply here. You simply get the best combination of low CPU utilization and very low power consumption when watching HD content:
So far so good; we don't have any HDMI incompatibilities, no repeater issues to report, the GeForce 9300 just worked in all of our home theater setups. But how about the more niche features?
8-channel LPCM support comes natively with the GeForce 9300 and like on the Radeon HD 4xxx series, it just works. NVIDIA's platform drivers include an HDMI audio driver that, once installed, allows you to configure your audio output as 2, 6 or 8 channels. Of course bitstreaming both Dolby Digital and DTS audio is supported. Unfortunately, as we've mentioned before, there is no support for bitstreaming Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA; you'll need to wait until sometime next year before you get full support there.
As we mentioned in our last article, proper 24Hz refresh rate support is particularly useful for playing back 24 fps content (which happens to be most movie content). Intel offers no support for 24Hz/24fps playback, AMD's implementation is a bit flaky, but NVIDIA's works flawlessly (at least with our test subjects). When connected to a display that supports a 24Hz input signal the option appears in the driver; just select it and you're good to go. The result is silky smooth playback of video content and it's nice.
Short of TrueHD/DTS-HD MA support, NVIDIA's GeForce 9300 is the perfect HTPC chipset. The NVIDIA control panel even offers more post processing customization options than both AMD and Intel, although we're thankful that NVIDIA disables all of the features by default. Honestly the only other complaint we have is that we need to have a monitor hooked up to the system to first get it installed in our home theater setup; once properly configured it worked flawlessly with our Integra DTC-9.8 pre-processor and JVC DLA-RS2 projector setup. There is still need for improvement on the software side to enable users to build a computer and simply plug it into a HT setup without a monitor and have it work.
Good job NVIDIA, here's your crown. (Care for a service plan with that?)
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XavierJohn - Thursday, October 23, 2008 - link
I switched from a Pioneer Elite to Integra DHC-9.9 and to me it seems like the Pioneer sounds better. Pioneer during its speaker setup also setup EQ to compensate for room modes. I did not see Integra do that.XavierJohn - Friday, October 17, 2008 - link
I wish you said atleast one sentence on why you would go from Pioneer to DTC 9.8.Better sound?
BikeDude - Thursday, October 16, 2008 - link
I have never fully understood "PureVideo". It is my understanding that this is only supported by a handful few players, like the awfully buggy PowerDVD that simply won't run on my system (PowerDVD no longer support SCSI DVD-ROM).Atechie - Friday, October 17, 2008 - link
Funny, Windows Media Player and PureVideo works fine for me?iwodo - Thursday, October 16, 2008 - link
The performance for Ethernet CPU usage seems rather poor. In fact all of them are bad, as Intel should be in the region of single digit percentage shown in other website.One interesting point i realize while reading, i hope to share with their reader.
Is that measuring the few percentage difference with low CPU resoource usage playing H.264 Full HD isn't very important at all... Why?
Because the difference between 15 - 25% , while 10% looks like a lot, the most important factor is POWER CONSUMPTION. While most people would think lower CPU usage and therefore lower power usage. In this article it turns out while Geforce has the lowest power consumption while using most CPU resources.
And how many people use their CPU for other heavy task while watching Full HD Movie?
I cant wait to see these being refreshed next summer, with 40nm, more die space because memory and most northbridge move to CPU, we should be able to put more then double the shader inside?
crabnebula - Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - link
I know the focus is on Blu-ray and progressive source material, but most people stil have SD DVDs and 1080i TV broadcasts that they want to play back on their HTPC.Adequate deinterlacing, detail enhancement and noise reduction have been the missing pieces of the puzzle for all other IGPs except the 780G + Phenom combination, but that has other issues.
What about the 9300/9400? Does the increased GPU power allow for better processing?
If it doesn't, there is one other check missing on your list, in my opinion.
Natfly - Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - link
So is this the article that was supposed to come out analyzing the 780G, 8200, and G45? You know, months.... and months.... and months ago? I'm glad you guys waited until nVidia released a competative product before releasing this article. Otherwise I would have bought a 780G motherboard months ago.AmdInside - Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - link
I wish you guys wouldn't use the Sony BDU-X10S in your testing. I've owned this drive and it just sucks. Had problems on both Intel and NVIDIA chipsets.As for the data transferring problem, I had the same problem recently on my Badaxe2 motherboard. I was moving my hard drive from my Geforce 8200 system to Intel G45 system but first needed to copy recordings to another hard drive so that I could format the hard drive. My desktop has a Badaxe2 is running Vista x64 and I too randomly experienced pauses when copying 500GB of data. Not sure if it is related but it might just be a Vista thing.
Badkarma - Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - link
Hi Anand/Gary,In your next installment, can you please find the slowest usable CPU that plays Bluray smoothly and also test Speedstep with it? Using a quadcore is really overkill and kind of defeats the purpose of GPU DXVA. The 8200 w/ a 4850e cannot utilize CnQ to playback BR. I'd like to see whether a 9300 w/ E5200 or E7200 and Speedstep enabled can play BR smoothly.
Thanks.
sonicology - Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - link
Nice LL Cool J reference in the article description!