The IGP Chronicles Part 1: Intel's G45 & Motherboard Roundup
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Gary Key on September 24, 2008 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Blu-ray Playback: Integrated Graphics Matters Again
We've already established that integrated graphics don't really matter for gaming. Those who are serious about games have a discrete card, those who aren't serious about games are either playing something that doesn't require 3D acceleration or plays well on everything. There is a small group that this doesn't apply to but I'd bet that you can fit the vast majority of users into one of the two aforementioned categories.
Over a decade ago, integrated graphics performance mattered for another very important reason - 2D performance. These days most all IGPs handle basic Windows performance just fine, so if you're not using integrated graphics for gaming, is there any reason to care about one over another?
Video playback emerged as a killer application for integrated graphics over the years, and with Blu-ray's emergence as the de facto high definition media standard the need for some minimum level of IGP performance was established.
CPU utilization during high bitrate Blu-ray playback is prohibitively high, thankfully we now have the transistor budget to include the entire H.264, VC1 and MPEG-2 decode pipeline on GPUs. As chipsets also shrunk in manufacturing process, the hardware Blu-ray acceleration functions also found their way into integrated graphics cores. It started with AMD and NVIDIA but now Intel is on-board.
G45 is Intel's first chipset to include support for full hardware H.264/MPEG-2/VC-1 decode acceleration, including the entire H.264 decode pipeline (CABAC/CAVLAC entropy decoding included). This support puts Intel's integrated graphics on-par with the feature set of ATI/NVIDIA IGPs as well.
It gets even better for home theater PC enthusiasts: G45 continues Intel's recent tradition of including support for 8-channel LPCM audio output over HDMI, a feature that has been around since the G965 days. NVIDIA supports 8-channel LPCM audio output over HDMI with its chipsets while AMD only offers 2-channel LPCM. I recently went through and explained exactly what this feature means but if you're looking to build a Blu-ray compatible HTPC with many speakers, it's a useful feature.
G45 Blu-ray Playback
The first incarnation of G45 had horrible Blu-ray playback issues, it just didn't work. Since then Intel has gone through numerous driver revisions and we're finally at the point where, with the latest drivers (15.11.2.1554) that Blu-ray acceleration just works. It's supremely disappointing that it took Intel this long to fix these issues but they are at least finally taken care of.
CPU utilization, as you would expect, goes down with hardware acceleration enabled.
| Blu-ray Playback with a Celeron Dual Core E1200 | Intel G45 | Intel G35 |
| Dave Matthews - Live at Radio City (VC-1) | 55.5% | 73.2% |
| Crank (MPEG-2) | 37.6% | 53.2% |
| The Simpsons Movie (H.264) | 51.2% | 95.9% |
With a Celeron Dual Core E1200 processor, CPU utilization while playing a Blu-ray movie goes down tremendously, especially during H.264 playback. On faster CPUs the end result is even more manageable:
| Blu-ray Playback with a Core 2 Duo E7200 | Intel G45 | Intel G35 |
| Dave Matthews - Live at Radio City (VC-1) | 31.4% | 44.2% |
| Crank (MPEG-2) | 27.4% | 36.3% |
| The Simpsons Movie (H.264) | 24.9% | 67.6% |
The gap between the hardware accelerated G45 and its predecessor actually shrinks in the lighter load scenarios with a faster processor, but the difference when decoding H.264 is still impressive.
8-channel LPCM but no 24Hz Playback
Intel was extremely forward looking in its support of 8-channel LPCM audio over HDMI back on the G965 chipset; only within the past year have its competitors caught up. As I mentioned before, there's a thorough explanation of what 8-channel LPCM over HDMI means in our recent article here, but if you've got a 6 or 8 channel speaker setup and want to play Blu-ray movies, this feature is quite useful.
I tested 8-channel LPCM on G45 and, as expected, it just worked. Unfortunately there's still no 24bit playback support, which Intel is blaming on the ISVs for not supporting at this time - but technically there's no reason that it wouldn't work on G45 if there was proper driver/software support.
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Butterbean - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
I'm not sure why this board is measured/reviewed for its gaming ability (or lack of). A lot of HTPC peeps get these because they are quiet and can play DVD's without the noise /heat. Not many people really expect to play Oblivion on it.8steve8 - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
the dg45id has the unique ability to ouptut simultaniously to two displays with a digital interface.imo its the prefect board for non-gamers with dual-monitors..
seriouosly.. analog sucks.
should be listed in the pros/cons.
CSMR - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
Yes, a very important feature for a work system with integrated graphics. Presumably common to all G45 boards with DVI and hdmi?yehuda - Saturday, September 27, 2008 - link
No, the Gigabyte board can't do that even though it has both ports.http://download.gigabyte.ru/manual/motherboard_man...">http://download.gigabyte.ru/manual/motherboard_man... (p. 8, footnote 1)
npp - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
SPCR measured the power consumtion of the same mini-ITX G45 board and found it to consume 35W at idle with an E7200 CPU installed (which should consume a tiny bit more than a 5200, given it works at higher FSB speeds and has more cache).Your figures showed something like 57W; one would say, hey, no big deal, we're talking about only 22W here. But if you take this as relative difference - it turns out to be 60%! SPCR used only one DIMM, but I doubt this can explain the discrepancy. The PSU was a 400W model, so I guess it has similar efficiency curve as the Corsair model you used.
Given the strange results of you power consumption measurements recently, I have reasons to doubt that something simply isn't right out there.
CSMR - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
SPCR people will make more efficient choices. Efficient PSU, notebook hard drive, non-overclocked RAM. 57W is a good result for a mainstream review. Little things can add up to 22W, especially PSU efficiency.MadDogMorgan - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
ANAND! These vibrant media popups are KILLING ME!!!!I am about ready to GO INSANE reading your site. You CAN'T POSSIBLY be making any MONEY off those things, they are too INCREDIBLY ANNOYING for anyone to ever THINK about watching one or clicking one.
Oh, and I LIKE PS/2 ports. What's wrong with PS/2 ? It works great, takes less cpu than USB (in my VERY informal mouse testing) and the headers take up very little space on the mobo. You also have the option to use the USB connections instead, if you want.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
Visit this URL: http://anandtech.com/siteinfo.aspx?off=yes">http://anandtech.com/siteinfo.aspx?off=yesIt'll disable all IntelliTXT on AnandTech for you :)
-A
zagood - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
Wow, thank you! Now how do we do that on DT?MadDogMorgan - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
Thank you VERY MUCH for providing this option.Also, please keep up the good work and I appreciate you spending some time in the HTPC area. It seems to me there is a decided lack of good technical coverage in this arena. The kind of in-depth coverage that only your and a couple of other notable sites provide.
I would like to see some TV Tuner card reviews from your site comparing the technical details of the latest offerings from Hauppauge, ATI and any other popular ones. Toss in a review of a few PVR apps like GB-PVR, SageTV, MythTV and BeyondTV and (HTPC) life would be complete. Don't forge to address the difficulty of getting the channel listings when using a freebe like GB-PVR, or the ins and outs of getting scheduled recordings to actually WORK when the app uses the Windows Task Scheduler.
Thanks Again.