Official Sandy Bridge / LGA1155 for HTPCs Thread - Page 72

If you have lived with 3:2 judder for years, most people don't notice it anymore.
I'm from the EU, we never had that. PAL 25p/50i is perfectly smooth, so when i see a 24p movie on a 60Hz screen now, its bad.

I suppose this also makes me (and other PAL country inhabitants) more sensitive to dropped frames.

Anyway, the 29.97 fps broadcast 3:2 issue is not a hardware problem, it can be fixed with software by applying Inverse Telecine (IVTC) to restore the original 24p, but its not a trivial process.
madVR can for example do it, but the feature is still new and not completely finished (no autodetection, have to turn it on manually). I also don't know any app that can show live tv and use madVR.

Ha! Pretty funny.

But possibly just as relevant.

A rule of thumb is, if there are more shader units, video memory can run slower. But I am not sure if DDR3-1333 is enough. Even with GeForce GT 430, DDR3-1400 is OK, but DDR3-1200 is too slow (dropped frames with 1080i60 contents).

April 8: Z75, Z77, H77, B75 chipsets will be released. Mb with these chipsets will be available at retail stores (they also support Sandy Bridge).

April 29: Desktop Ivy Bridge 4C/8T (quad-core/octa-thread) will be released. NDA lifted so there will be media reviews on IVB. Actual availability of the chip may be a bit delayed, however.

June: Ivy Bridge 2C/4T will be released (update: this is wrong, IVB 2C will be released only in Holiday).

Any official confirmation which H6x boards will support Ivy Bridge? I first read that only Z68 would support it but then lately have read that all H6x boards will be able to be upgraded.

Of course Intel will never tell something *officially* to the public until the *official* release date. Leaked slide. Most H61/H67/P67/Z68 mb should support IVB with simple BIOS update. For example, ASUS H61/H67/P67/Z68 mb that will support Ivy Bridge (the support for PCIe 3.0 implies the support for Ivy Bridge).

April 29? And i was hoping that the CPUs would be released beginning of April together with the boards.

Without an authoritive source i'll just consider your information false and keep hoping for an earlier release!

I don't think it should be characterized as "unacceptable", but it is a gap versus other solutions (HTPC, or otherwise). We shouldn't be giving anything a pass - for e.g. overdone VPP / wonkey luminance inconsistency (AMD), crappy 3D implementation (NVIDIA), or the lack of proper focus on refresh rate accuracy (Intel). Each of these things are defects IMO, and should be discussed and raised as issues to the respective vendors.


I don't think it's productive to be dismissive. While I fall into the sees-it-but-thinks-other-things-are-more-important camp, issues like this are disruptive for many people and therefore are valid topics of discussion.

Completely agree.

What I don't agree with is scaring people away from HTPC (which I have seen on multiple occasions here at AVS and elsewhere) or to tell people that they "have to have" a discrete card to have an acceptable HTPC experience because of the "24p bug" or because "HTPC isn't there yet".

As I have said now for over a year: Start with the integrated GPU. If for any reason at all you aren't happy THEN add a discrete GPU. But don't go looking for issues like "24p" because they might not be noticeable to you. And don't scare people away because of it. And don't insult people because they don't have "perfect 24p" as somehow not being "videophiles" or somehow having an inferior HTPC compared to the next user.

Our goal should be to get people into HTPC. Not push them away. My 60 year old in-laws have a HTPC that I built and they work it just fine. And they love it.

if I miss a frame every few thousand or so...

so what?

It really matters none when I rate how much I enjoy my HTPC.

But it matters to others when they rate how much they enjoy their PC...

I noticed today some oddities in 576i/25 playback on my HTPC but it seems to be restricted to only one channel (Dave on Freeview in the UK) so it must be an issue with their source material (even though it's all natively 576i/25 >_>).

Source: Donanimhaber.com (a 100% reliable source, based on my recent experience). The Tech Report's opinion. The most shocking news is: Core i3 and Pentium slated for a holiday release!! It looks like AMD Trinity is the winner.

Holiday? Is that July 4th? Or Christmas? That's the the date that matters for HTPC.

I assume "Holiday" = Christmas.

That's what I was afraid of. Thanks for posting the info.

Shouldn't we wait and see what it can do before calling the winner?

Agreed. Llano was supposed to be the "perfect" HTPC according to at least 1 thread here at AVS.

From a *madVR-centric* viewpoint (I am sorry for that biased opinion ), AMD Llano is already the winner in terms of price, performance, 3D capability. For example, AMD A6-3500 $75 can handle the highest quality setting of madVR easily (thanks to the latest development of LAV Video Decoder [DXVA2 copy-back] and madVR [DXVA2 deintelacing]), as well as HDMI 1.4a 3D and HD audio bitstreaming. Nothing can beat it.

Core i3-3225 2C/4T 16 EUs is perhaps the cheapest IVB processor that can handle the highest quality setting of madVR, but it will cost > $100 and be available only in Holiday.

If you are not interested in madVR, you still have to wait for 2C IVB in Holiday, some of which may lack 3D capability.

That's a pretty narrow definition What settings do you use to define "highest quality" in madVR? It's true that SNB can't handle 8-tap Lanzos, but that doesn't look good to my eyes (what does look good to them works fine with HD 3000).

I agree that Llano has a stronger GPU, but it's hotter, slower, and AMD doesn't have the best track record for driver quality (when I reviewed the A8-3800 it didn't even support HDMI hot-plugging).


Price is only one metric (and a very blunt one at that).

Highest = SoftCubic 50/100 for chroma and Lanczos/Spline 4 taps for luma. Anything higher won't make a sense (and only a good discrete card can handle that). The power consumption (DC draw) of the total system at video playback with DXVA2/EVR and DXVA2 (copy-back)/Intel QuickSync/madVR respectively is:

- A6-3500: 29W, 48W
- Core i3-2105: 29W, 38W.

I am not going to start a flame war here. Everyone's option is just an opinion.

ATI drivers.

Ugh.

Thanks, I'll test that setting.


No flaming intended. Just trying to understand "the why" behind your statements.

I have done an extensive test on graphcis cards recently. Like this madVR test (Intel and NVIDIA finished too). HDMI audio, the video decoder capability, output color formats, 3D, HQV, how accurate 23Hz is, etc. So it's more metric than just an imagination (as often seen in a forum).

I know you're thorough

In some context (madVR) Llano is a clear winner because it offers more flexibility to choose whatever you want.

Moving outside that scenario it's not as clear though because the CPU is quite slow, doesn't compare well to what SNB can provide in performance per watt (many, including myself, use their HTPC for more than just video consumption), better OOTB experience with EVR (e.g. AMD's default VPP is a hot mess and Intel's VPP w/ EVR is quite good) players, and over all HTPC centric driver quality. Also, for those who don't watch SD content, have large displays (or both) the importance of madVR isn't as critical as many of these other things.

I don't mean to say that AMD isn't a good choice, just that the context in which statements are made should be clear. This is even more critical when they are made by someone (like you) who's opinion [understandably] carries significant weight.

Incredible post. Well said.

Price is irrelevant, quality and performance is what counts, at least for me.

Sure, Llano has a better GPU, but the CPU performance is abysmal.
If you want to do any extra work on the CPU, maybe even only doing high quality subtitle rendering [in combination with software decoding], you might run into issues. Not to mention decoding of future formats like 10-bit H264 (which is really a lot more cpu intensive).

I'm building a new HTPC which should last a while. That means i get a good CPU, with an "OK" iGPU. The GPU can be easily upgraded in the future with an extra card if need be, but the CPU you're usually stuck with.
Maybe i'm special because i have the money to spare, but i never really liked the "value" choice, sacrificing some aspect of performance in the process.

Anyway, my new HTPC will probably feature a i5-3570K or maybe even a i7-3770 (with or without K). We'll see how the prices for those end up in real life (just because i'm willing to spend a bit more doesn't mean i pay everything )

PS:
From your Llano test, looks like to properly handle 60p content, you already need the A8-3850, which is over $100 as well.

Thanks a lot. Don't you think you need some blog to keep all your findings in one place?

I have been thinking of starting my own web site, but creating a good-looking site was an obstacle. I spent some time to learn Adobe Illustrator (Bézier curves [affine algebraic curves]), Photoshop, Dreamweaver, XHTML/CSS and now I have some confidence to create a site from scratch.