Blu-ray and Gaming Power Consumption
In order to produce comparable numbers to previous CPU articles I ran the same power test in my Zotac review as I did in other CPU reviews. While the x264 encode test is good for stressing the CPU, it doesn’t do anything to the GPU. So what does power consumption look like when you’re pushing the GPU? Interestingly enough: not very different:
Playing back a Blu-ray movie using the 9300’s PureVideo engine actually uses less power than when the GPU is idle and the CPU is running at 100%. Remember that NVIDIA’s PureVideo decode engine is separate from the 3D rendering engine, it’s a highly specialized piece of the die useful only for video decode. As a result, it’s highly power efficient.
| Idle Power | x264 Encoding Power Consumption | Blu-ray Playback Power Consumption | World of Warcraft Power Consumption | |
| Zotac Ion-A | 25W | 28.2W | 28.0W | 34.0W |
The story is very different when you look at total system power consumption while playing World of Warcraft. We see our highest power consumption in this scenario since both the CPU and the SPs on the GPU are working in parallel.
While my Blu-ray CPU utilization numbers were taken without a BD drive attached, it’s worth noting that simply connecting an optical drive to the system can significantly increase power consumption. With my Sony Blu-ray drive plugged in to Zotac’s Ion board the system’s idle power consumption went up from 25W to 29W - that’s a 16% increase.
I would provide load power measurements with a Blu-ray drive attached but PowerDVD 9 started to complain about an incompatible graphics driver and refused to play any encrypted Blu-ray content. Note that this was the same install I ran my original Blu-ray playback tests on, simply several reboots and a couple of game installs later. Unfortunately it continues to be more user friendly to circumvent Blu-ray disc encryption to watch movies you own than to simply insert the disc and watch them on the PC. What would we do without AnyDVD HD.
Final Words
Availability of the Zotac Ion A boards (with the dual-core Atom 330) is still pretty limited (Newegg only has the single-core version in stock) but I still stand by it being a good little motherboard. I personally wouldn’t touch the single-core version unless it was just being used for a file server or something similarly light on the CPU, in which case it might make sense to snag the cheaper Intel version.
For now the Ion looks like a good platform, although I do wonder what will come of it next year. Intel isn’t very happy about NVIDIA’s Apple coup and the recent attention of Ion. If Intel doesn’t enable seamless HD video playback with Pineview then NVIDIA deserves to see Ion grow into a success. Oh and Intel, if you’re listening, 8-channel LPCM audio over HDMI would be a nice plus (I’ll be extra happy if we get bitstreaming of HD audio codecs).
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
28 Comments
View All Comments
UltraWide - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
are there full screen playback limitations???this is not good news...
Pandamonium - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
I'm curious about this myself. I wonder if the scaling is a limitation of the GPU? I just can't see how it would be CPU-bound if usage is below 80%.I think all the HTPC users want to know is if this thing is viable for Blu-ray (confirmed), remote power on/off (fingers crossed for Zotac's response), and full screen (1080p and 720p) playback of 720p and 480p flash video (negative at stock speeds). I don't have a Netflix subscription myself, but I imagine people are also interested in knowing what quality stream it can play smoothly.
I think the holy grail for many HTPC enthusiasts is a quiet/low power machine capable of S3 shutdown/resume via USB, yet powerful enough to handle physical media and streamed media at HD resolutions.
Could you do a quick followup on the capabilities of the overclocked board? This is very close to what the HTPC crowd has been waiting for.
roamer - Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - link
Hello,could anymobody please test the performance of the onboard NIC?
In another review it was mentioned that the troughput was only 19,5 MB/s. This would be really poor for GbE NIC.
flipmode - Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - link
Anand, your response to feedback is very commendable. You're a class act. Thanks. flipmode.UltraWide - Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - link
It answered all my lingering questions.Now, I am just waiting for this to be in stock anywhere. I have purchased all the other required parts...
Zotac, hurry up!!!!
Basilisk - Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - link
... but not directly plugged into the board, that's pretty odd. It's counter-intuitive to me -- shouldn't your KVM be identical to a comparably long USB extension cable? I'm puzzled you didn't write more on the point. I'm curious what other hook-up variations might enable wake-up: extension cables, wall-powered USB hubs, different mice/keyboards. Or... is your KVM, itself, re-shaping the USB signal in some way in some way beyond adding resistance to the wires?!457R4LDR34DKN07 - Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - link
I am really kind of interested in seeing the point of view ion board. Then at least you have the option of upgrading the the not so sucky but still integrated video.sprockkets - Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - link
Zotac's earlier nVidia 7100 boards could not do S3 standby properly; it required a new board revision to fix it.Perhaps this board isn't making enough 5VSB for the peripherals.
Hey Anand, care to stick a Super Talent ssd in the mini pci-e slot to test it?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
AmdInside - Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - link
For what it's worth, I have an HP Slimline PC with nForce 430/Geforce 6150 and also a custom built PC with Asus Geforce 8200 motherboard and both have no problems waking up from USB whether it is wireless keyboard or MCE remote control. I use them both as HTPCs so they go to sleep quite often and are woken up by USB often.lemonadesoda - Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - link
Did you remember to select, in control panel, mouse, properties, hardware, properties, power management, "allow this device to bring computer out of standby"?It is silly this is not set to "true" by default.
The KVM driver probably HAS this set to true by default.