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Nvidia ION - Page 3

post #61 of 229
5/6/09 at 6:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by drkdiggler View Post

Jay_S:
Thank you for throwing this out there. The economics related to the power consumption difference don't matter much (my utilities are included in my rent), however, power consumption is important to me for a few reasons: less noise (no power supply fan(s), passive cooling or infrequent fan use for Ion) and saving power for the sake of saving power.

On a somewhat related point, my current motherboard has a GeForce 8200 onboard which can do almost everything with VDPAU except for running the hardware deinterlacer in MythTV. I figure that I am going to have to buy a new video card anyway, so I can probably get pretty close to the purchase price of an Ion board by selling off my motherboard, processor, and power supply anyway.

These are all great reasons. It's really too bad about the 8200/8300 - those boards are priced so well (compared to their 9300/9400 intel cousins).
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post #62 of 229
5/6/09 at 6:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay_S View Post

Bit-Tech.net: First Look: Zotac Nvidia Ion Mini-ITX

That's pretty cool. The DC-DC components are built-in to the MB. The AC/DC power brick (not DC-DC as the above quote suggests) plugs right in.

On a lark I tried "nvidia ion" in Froogle.... FadFusion listed the Zotac board (with the N330) as out of stock, but for $205. Ouch. The N230 mobo for $147.

Changing the search to zotac ion, confirms the magnitude of these crazy prices.
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post #63 of 229
5/6/09 at 8:58am
mini-itx.com has 2 versions up for pre-order:

Zotac ION-ITX-B with the Atom N230: $175.53
(Note: this one does NOT include the power brick - look at the pics, there's a standard ATX power connector on the back)

Zotac ION-ITX-A Wi-Fi Dual Core 1.6GHz Atom N330: $234.53
(this one includes the AC/DC brick and some other stuff)

Ouch is right!
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post #64 of 229
5/6/09 at 12:50pm
Definitely a shame about the 8200/8300 boards; I'm big on AMD processors. I ripped my first Blu-Ray disc today (The Dark Knight) and can confirm that the onboard 8200 can't hit full framerate in XBMC. CPU utilization is under 10% with the framerate varying between 19-21 fps. Enabling VDPAU noise reduction drops the framerate by 1-3 additional fps.
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post #65 of 229
5/7/09 at 5:24am
At these prices you can pick up a Mini-ITX N330 board http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121360 for $82 and a 9400 PCI ($20 after rebate) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814133247

Most of the mini-ITX cases all appear to come with a PSU anyway (so getting a PSU with the Zotac doesn't save any $$)....
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post #66 of 229
5/7/09 at 6:29am
Looks like the closest thing to ION from ATI (EEE B206.. EEE Box PC with ATI gfx) isn't all that hot (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/05..._eee_box_b206/)

I know folks generally prefer nvidia anyway, but would have been nice to see this space (small HD-capable boxes) have as many options as possible.
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post #67 of 229
5/7/09 at 11:24pm
What's the deal with the 8200 boards? I just ordered one to replace a 6150 board. I thought they worked fine with vdpau.
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post #68 of 229
5/8/09 at 6:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by wnewell View Post

What's the deal with the 8200 boards? I just ordered one to replace a 6150 board. I thought they worked fine with vdpau.

AFAIK, the 8200/8300 boards:
1) work fine for progressive material, but don't have sufficient muscle for advanced (spatial/temporal) HD deinterlacing.
2) have (or had - maybe it's fixed now?) issues in XBMC. There's posts all over this massive xbmc.org thread about this. But to be fair, I haven't kept up with that issue since I don't actually own one of the affected boards.
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post #69 of 229
5/8/09 at 12:08pm
^^^ Well that stinks. I was looking at 8200/8300s also, to replace my ATI card. But my only real complaint about the ATI card is that it doesn't do hardware deinterlace and I don't have enough CPU to handle deinterlacing of HD material.

BTW, has anyone tried deinterlacing HD material with the new ffmpeg-mt (multithread) build and a new core 4 CPU????


Perhaps we'd all be better off getting a new core4 cpu and doing the deinterlacing in SW...
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post #70 of 229
5/8/09 at 2:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac The Knife View Post

^^^ Well that stinks. I was looking at 8200/8300s also, to replace my ATI card. But my only real complaint about the ATI card is that it doesn't do hardware deinterlace and I don't have enough CPU to handle deinterlacing of HD material.

BTW, has anyone tried deinterlacing HD material with the new ffmpeg-mt (multithread) build and a new core 4 CPU????


Perhaps we'd all be better off getting a new core4 cpu and doing the deinterlacing in SW...

Hmm... just replace your ATI card with a 9500GT and spend the $$$ difference (vs a quad core CPU) on beer.
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post #71 of 229
5/9/09 at 2:53am
I have a MB with GeForce 8200 GPU. VDPAU works perfectly for me in MythTV and mplayer. Only XBMC has problems.

As for deinterlacing, I use Temporal (1x,hw) for 1080i, and Advanced (1x,hw) for 480i. Works fine for me.

-- Kevin
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post #72 of 229
5/9/09 at 5:30am
Confirmed for Temporal (1x,hw) with 1080i. I had tried Advanced (1x,hw) and Advanced (2x,hw) without any success. k_ross, have you been successful with either of those deinterlacers?
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post #73 of 229
5/9/09 at 11:50am
Advanced 1x at 1080i is too slow, the video lags behind. And I assumed I couldn't use any of the 2x deinterlacers, since it says I need to be running at a refresh rate at least double that of the source. I'm running my display at 60Hz.

-- Kevin
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post #74 of 229
5/9/09 at 1:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay_S View Post

Hmm... just replace your ATI card with a 9500GT and spend the $$$ difference (vs a quad core CPU) on beer.

Unfortunately, my current MB is AGP not PCI-E and there's no such thing as either an AGP or PCI version of the 9500GT (at least I haven't been able to find any). However, there are 8200/8300 versions in PCI.

So I either need to find a PCI card or upgrade to a new MB/CPU and everything else. In which case I'd like to try getting away with just on-board video, but I've only been able to find 8200/8300 versions on-board, no 9xxx series stuff.

Finally, I also do enough transcoding that I can benefit from as much CPU as I can afford. So if I'm going to be forced down the new MB road and I can get the CPU to handle the deinterlacing and just use on-board video, I'd rather go that route than to dump money into an expensive video board that has a bunch of gaming features that I don't want and will never use.
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post #75 of 229
5/9/09 at 2:18pm
Newegg to the rescue (PCI 9500GT):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814139046
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post #76 of 229
5/10/09 at 1:48pm
^^^ That sure complicates my decision.

I think I'm still leaning towards a new MB since I've been putting off upgrading for so long.

I'm not sure I want to dump $100 into this old unit and there's a couple of other improvements that I would get from a new MB (faster SATA ports and hopefully an audio chip that has better support than the old VIA chip on my MB).

I guess what I'm really hoping to find is a MB with a 9xxx chipset on board.
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post #77 of 229
5/10/09 at 1:53pm
There are several motherboard with 9xxx chipset onboard for Intel CPUs. Unfortunately, AMD motherboards are limited to the 8xxx series.
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post #78 of 229
5/11/09 at 2:37am
The 8xxx GPU architechture is the same as 9xxx GPU architecture.
(16 g86 steam processors), so there is no limitations in the GPU itself.

However AMD's memory controller is integrated in the CPU (Hyper Transport).
If you have a AM2+ CPU (Phenom or Athlon x2 7x50) with HT3.0 support the performance is equal to the Geforce 9300/9400 board.

This fact makes AMD athlon x2 4850e a bad choice for HTPC.
Lets hope the new 45W quad cores will come into production

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...3564&Itemid=35
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post #79 of 229
5/11/09 at 12:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac The Knife View Post

^^^ Well that stinks. I was looking at 8200/8300s also, to replace my ATI card. But my only real complaint about the ATI card is that it doesn't do hardware deinterlace and I don't have enough CPU to handle deinterlacing of HD material.

The 8200 MB (4200+) works fine with my 720p TV and mythtv.
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post #80 of 229
5/11/09 at 3:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by obergeru View Post

The 8xxx GPU architechture is the same as 9xxx GPU architecture.

There are differences in the IGP's. Per anandtech.com:
  • The 9X00 is built on a 65nm process and has 16 shader processors
  • The 8X00 is built on a 90nm process and has 8 shader processors
@Mac The Knife:
If you're transcoding, pairing a low-end intel quad with a 9300/9400 IGP motherboard would be a great combo. Not the cheapest, though. I'd def avoid the ION for transcoding!
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post #81 of 229
5/12/09 at 5:05am
There must be an error in the Anandtech article.

All other sites claims 16 stream processors.

Can someone with a 8200 chipset comfirm with GPU-Z ?
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post #82 of 229
5/12/09 at 5:07am
Link to other sites (sorry for double post was not allowed to post URL)

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles...?cid=6&id=2494


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...2#post14323002
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post

I am not sure what kind of power you are talking about, but basically these GPU are identical. All of 8400 GS, 8200/8300, 9300/9400 include:

- The same hardware HD video decoder PureVideo HD Gen3 that has enough power for decoding all three formats MPEG-2, VC-1 and H.264, except 8400 GS (G86) which uses the older PureVideo Gen2 (no VC-1 HA)!
- 16 stream processors of the same architecture

The only difference between a discrete card and IGP is local frame buffer vs. shared memory frame buffer. (Yup, memory is the most difficult part in the AMD platform.) These GPUs are all weak in deinterlacing (as well as 3D performance) because of scanty stream processors.

- 8400 GS (G86): PureVideo HD Gen2, 16 sp, Core/Shader 459/918 (The majority of retail 8400 GS cards are still G86!)
- 8400 GS (G98): PureVideo HD Gen3, 16 sp, Core/Shader 567/1400
- GeForce 8200: PureVideo HD Gen3, 16 sp, Core/Shader 500/1200
- GeForce 8300: PureVideo HD Gen3, 16 sp, Core/Shader 500/1500
- GeForce 9300: PureVideo HD Gen3, 16 sp, Core/Shader 450/1200
- GeForce 9400: PureVideo HD Gen3, 16 sp, Core/Shader 580/1500

Summary

GeForce 8200/8300 is powerful enough to playback BD movies!!
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post #83 of 229
5/12/09 at 9:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by obergeru View Post

There must be an error in the Anandtech article.

All other sites claims 16 stream processors.

You're right - using google image search for 8200 8300 gpuz shows either zero or 16 stream processors (the zero results are most likely before gpu-z was been updated to support the 8x00 series). I wonder how anandtech screwed that one up? Maybe their review was using a pre-production sample? Oddly, you can't find definitive information on this at Nvidia's site!
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post #84 of 229
5/12/09 at 2:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay_S View Post

There are differences in the IGP's. Per anandtech.com:
  • The 9X00 is built on a 65nm process and has 16 shader processors
  • The 8X00 is built on a 90nm process and has 8 shader processors
@Mac The Knife:
If you're transcoding, pairing a low-end intel quad with a 9300/9400 IGP motherboard would be a great combo. Not the cheapest, though. I'd def avoid the ION for transcoding!

Yes, I've been completely off-topic with my ramblings.

I was never interested in the ION, but the related vdpau comments sent me off on a tangent.

I apologize for hi-jacking the thread.
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post #85 of 229
5/12/09 at 2:39pm
Zotac IONITX-A...

Finally reviewed:

http://hothardware.com/Articles/Zota...n-Motherboard/
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post #86 of 229
5/12/09 at 2:48pm
Another review:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16893

EDIT: And another one:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3562

EDIT #2: Can't forget Tom's Hardware!

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...atom,2300.html
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post #87 of 229
5/12/09 at 5:10pm
Interesting reviews, although they just confirm what was to be expected from the specs.

What would be really interesting now is a review or report from someone installing Linux on it, preferably for HTPC purposes!

Who's the first one to jump?

I would have liked to, but since I just had to buy a new mobo+gpu+cpu+ram for my desktop PC after the old mobo died, I currently can't justify another PC related expense...
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post #88 of 229
5/12/09 at 5:38pm
I'm ready to buy one as soon as it is available. Does anyone have a definitive availability date?
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post #89 of 229
5/12/09 at 8:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by drkdiggler View Post

I'm ready to buy one as soon as it is available. Does anyone have a definitive availability date?

I just can't see buying an ION when you can get the ZOTAC 9300 mini-itx plus a C2D for almost the same price as the ZOTAC ION board.. and certainly not for (my) HTPC use until the Flash situation is remedied with a VDPAU version (I realize a significant segment of folks are more concerned with Myth vs. Flash).. ie. if the size of my build box isn't going to be any smaller.. I'll go for the C2D system.

A tiny pre-fab N330 Hornet (or whatever its called this week) for $200.. ok, that might interest me just for the gee-wiz factor

EDIT: $20 rebate on the Zotac mini-itx 9300 (socket 775) now... finger is on the trigger....
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post #90 of 229
5/13/09 at 12:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by zim2dive View Post

if the size of my build box isn't going to be any smaller.. I'll go for the C2D system.

For some people (like myself) it's not just a matter of size, but also of quietness, it's much easier to run the Atom+ION passively cooled without fans than a C2D, especially in a small mini-ITX case.

If the Zotac ION-ITX-A will retail at 180USD like some of the reviews mentioned, then a complete system won't cost much more than 200USD either, all it needs is some RAM and a case (the power supply comes with the mobo), and possibly a hdd, but I have so many lying around that I wouldn't need to buy one and it could be run diskless network booting off the back-end server, too.
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