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*Official* NVIDIA Kepler (6xx) GPUs for HTPCs

post #1 of 237
3/22/12 at 5:01pm
Thread Starter 
There hasn't been much coverage of the HTPC capabilities of the new Kepler GPUs from NVIDIA. I hope we can use this thread to exchange information and provide tips on using a Kepler GPU in a HTPC.

The important HTPC features available in the Kepler series (in addition to whatever was provided by the Fermi family) are:

1. Support for 4K H.264 decode (VDPAU Feature Set D / VP5): Not working as of launch time with software from ISVs. Hendrik might need to update LAV Filters too, but, as of now, it is not clear whether it is a driver issue or software issue. Anyways, this is the spec on paper.

2. Support for H.264 encode: A competitor to Intel's QuickSync and AMD's VCE. Claims fast encode utpo 4K x 4K resolution, but, worked in practice only upto 1080p at launch time. Again, not sure whether it is a software issue or driver issue. Quality seems worse than QuickSync at launch time (detailed coverage from AnandTech may come later. Unable to find any detailed comparisons on other sites)

3. Full support for HDMI 1.4a : Ability to drive 4096 x 2160 at 24 Hz over a single HDMI port. (Will be testing this out shortly).

4. Support for 4 simultaneous displays
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post #2 of 237
3/22/12 at 6:31pm
Unrelated to HTPC's, I heard the Nvidia 680 blew the AMD 7970 by around 10-40% on average across the boards. Power included.

No biggie...I'm still satisfied with my 7770.
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post #3 of 237
3/22/12 at 7:15pm
Bought a GTX 580 for my gaming PC a while back.. just checked my EVGA member page and I was eligible for a step up to a GTX 680 free of charge! w00t! I'm excited for the 4K support, specifically for HTPC use. I guess it can also encode Blu-ray movies at up to 8x real time. =o
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post #4 of 237
3/23/12 at 4:56am
Have they announced desktop models other than the 680? I saw a lot of "m" models, but just the 680 for the desktop. I would love to see some HTPC friendly Kelper cards.
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post #5 of 237
3/23/12 at 7:12am
I am looking forward to seeing VP5/Feature Set D, but reading the review of the GTX680 at Anandtech, it seems that "compute" performance was disappointing compared with Fermi (see page 17 of that review.)

Isn't it this type of performance that we rely on for stuff like madVR?
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post #6 of 237
3/23/12 at 8:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by hogues View Post

Have they announced desktop models other than the 680? I saw a lot of "m" models, but just the 680 for the desktop. I would love to see some HTPC friendly Kelper cards.

FYI, all the "m" models...which are laptop models btw, are a carryover. They literally just bumped the number. Soooo....yeah. No new technology for laptops this year.
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post #7 of 237
3/23/12 at 8:31am
I'm looking forward to Anandtech's 4k experience with this card. I hope that there will be an update to the excellent HTPC graphics card feature from a few months ago. A shootout between Nvidia 6xx and AMD 7xxx and IvyBridge would be superb. Especially with regard to HTPC performance like you did so well before.

Thanks

SBR
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post #8 of 237
3/23/12 at 8:34am
No, there is mobile Kepler GK107 GPUs. These 3 below are guaranteed to be Kepler based GPUs.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/note...force-gtx-660m

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/note...eforce-gt-650m

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/note...eforce-gt-640m

Anything else is older gen Fermi(GT 640M LE is an exception, but I'm not even gonna bother with that mess of trying to figure out which GT 640M LE is Kepler) or 28nm shrink of Fermi.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5697/n...hrinks-oh-my/2

I'm guessing jakmal is waiting for the launch of the desktop GK107 card so that he can review it.
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post #9 of 237
3/23/12 at 8:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tiorapatea View Post

I am looking forward to seeing VP5/Feature Set D, but reading the review of the GTX680 at Anandtech, it seems that "compute" performance was disappointing compared with Fermi (see page 17 of that review.)

Isn't it this type of performance that we rely on for stuff like madVR?

VP5/Feature Set D (video decoder) has nothing to do with "compute" performance or madVR. Right now madVR requires modest hardware, even GT 430 is enough.
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post #10 of 237
3/23/12 at 8:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by HDGT View Post

I'm guessing jakmal is waiting for the launch of the desktop GK107 card so that he can review it.

Or maybe jakmal has had the card in his hands for a while, has written most of the review, and is just waiting for the day on which nvidia have told him he can publish it.

But we're not allowed to know either way. I think NDAs should be outlawed.
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post #11 of 237
3/23/12 at 9:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post

VP5/Feature Set D (video decoder) has nothing to do with "compute" performance or madVR. Right now madVR requires modest hardware, even GT 430 is enough.

What I meant was that, while I am looking forward to VP5, I am concerned to read about worse compute performance in Kepler versus Fermi, even though these two concepts are unrelated.

I keep reading that GT440, and maybe only some versions of that, is required for madVR (at least at the "best" settings). What I am hoping is that whatever they decide to call the desktop GK107 or GK106 (GT 640?) has enough "compute" power and memory bandwidth to deal with madVR, preferably also in the DDR3 versions, while having a much lower TDP than GT440, say 40W or something.
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post #12 of 237
3/23/12 at 9:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post

VP5/Feature Set D (video decoder) has nothing to do with "compute" performance or madVR. Right now madVR requires modest hardware, even GT 430 is enough.

How about upscaling SD or 1080i60 to 4k? With IVTC to 24p of course! My GT430 would struggle I think!

SBR
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post #13 of 237
3/23/12 at 9:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tiorapatea View Post

I keep reading that GT440, and maybe only some versions of that, is required for madVR (at least at the "best" settings).

That's an old story. GT 430 DDR3-1600 is enough for the highest quality setting of the latest version of madVR. I don't know the minimum number of CUDA cores in the Kepler architecture and memory bandwidth necessary for the highest setting of madVR. (At least GTX 680 is way overkill for madVR.)
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post #14 of 237
3/23/12 at 9:25am
GK107 would be much more powerful than GT 430/440.

GT 430 96SP x 1400MHz shader clock x 2 = 268 GFLOPs

GT 440 96SP x 1620MHz shader clock x 2 = 311 GFLOPs

GK107 384SP x 835MHz core clock x 2 = 641 GFLOPs

835MHz is GTX 660M core clock, desktop version might be even faster.
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post #15 of 237
3/23/12 at 9:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandy B Ridge View Post

How about upscaling SD or 1080i60 to 4k? With IVTC to 24p of course! My GT430 would struggle I think!

Yup, that's completely another story. (IVTC in madVR is done by CPU right now, BTW.)
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post #16 of 237
3/23/12 at 9:55am
Let me make an anandtech comment first:
Literally my favorite site to read about technology, but it appears for low end htpc cards, you bench reference cards with gddr5, when in reality, all the models available online are gddr3.

Like, I have no idea how well a 6450 gddr3 performs cause all the benches were done with gddr5 models.

So, when the cheapest kepler comes out, if it claims to use gddr5, can you look into if gddr5 models will actually exist?

Other than that, I'm wondering about madvr performance on the lowest end keplers. Video decode and digital audio output have been perfected for a while now, so I don't personally even find it that interesting anymore. 10 bit h264 and vp8 still could use some hardware acceleration, but even that isn't that big of a deal.
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post #17 of 237
3/23/12 at 10:57am
Thread Starter 
I tried to get 4K decode and display acceleration working (initially with a 1080p display) and this album summarizes my 'findings':

http://imgur.com/a/zoX0s

After getting it 'working' on a 1080p display, I shifted to a professional setup that I have access to (a Sony VPL-VW1000ES), and am happy to report that 4K p 24 display worked from the AMD 7750 HDMI output (with decoding in cuvid mode using the GT 520). Will get in screenshots / pics with the projector later

What I am positive about:

1. 4K decoding capabilities / content availability will be seeing better times as we move forward.

2. With Apple's push for high res displays at lower screen sizes, we should soon see 'retina-display' TVs and monitors, i.e, 4K resolutions at 30" and above.

Where I think industry could improve:

1. Tech companies: Don't call Quad FHD (3840x2160) as 4K in your marketing material. Toshiba, I am looking at you! You had a '4K' TV demonstration, and it was actually a 3840x2160 panel, and being driven by 4 HDMI ports to boot! Stop misleading consumers!

1. HDMI guys: What is the point of restricting'4K' to 4096x2160 at 24 Hz ? This is seriously short-sighted. Since we are going to such a high resolution, we might as well as get the full professional experience to the consumers [ 4096 × 3112 at 24 Hz]. Higher refresh / frame rates could be supported at the existing Quad FHD / 4096 x 2160 resolutions. This will definitely be coming soon, and we are going to see confusion between HDMI versions amongst the consumers.
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post #18 of 237
3/23/12 at 5:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jakmal View Post

3. Full support for HDMI 1.4a : Ability to drive 4096 x 2160 at 24 Hz over a single HDMI port. (Will be testing this out shortly).

Do you know if the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 is capable of 1080p60 per eye 3D over HDMI? I haven't been able to find any reviews that mention this issue.


Quote:
Originally Posted by jakmal View Post

Higher refresh / frame rates could be supported at the existing Quad FHD / 4096 x 2160 resolutions.

At the CES 2012 HDMI press conference (starting at 11:40 in the video) it was announced that the next HDMI specification would support "4K by 2K at 60 Hz".
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post #19 of 237
3/23/12 at 8:06pm
GK107 when it hits desktop looks like it could be a good choice over an HD7750 - and I'm a bit of an AMD fanboi.
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post #20 of 237
3/23/12 at 8:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lespurgeon View Post

GK107 when it hits desktop looks like it could be a good choice over an HD7750 - and I'm a bit of an AMD fanboi.

I used to be.. but AMD's graphics drivers just seem to be getting worse and worse. The 5870 was my last ATI/AMD.
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post #21 of 237
3/23/12 at 8:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jakmal View Post

There hasn't been much coverage of the HTPC capabilities of the new Kepler GPUs from NVIDIA. I hope we can use this thread to exchange information and provide tips on using a Kepler GPU in a HTPC.

Big thanks for the coverage you give at Anandtech for HTPC - I'd like to see even more, but definitely a step above the other sites I read.
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post #22 of 237
3/23/12 at 10:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Paul View Post

Do you know if the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 is capable of 1080p60 per eye 3D over HDMI? I haven't been able to find any reviews that mention this issue.

[EDIT] My bad I thought you were asking about the DVI connection [/EDIT]

All GPUs going back to G80 can do this with an 120 HZ (1080p) 3D vision ready monitor.

In 2D mode it does 1080p120 and in 3d mode 1080p60 per eye.

A dual link DVI connection is required for this unlike 1080p60 in 2D.
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post #23 of 237
3/24/12 at 3:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jakmal View Post

3. Full support for HDMI 1.4a : Ability to drive 4096 x 2160 at 24 Hz over a single HDMI port. (Will be testing this out shortly).

Quote:
Originally Posted by jakmal View Post

After getting it 'working' on a 1080p display, I shifted to a professional setup that I have access to (a Sony VPL-VW1000ES), and am happy to report that 4K p 24 display worked from the AMD 7750 HDMI output (with decoding in cuvid mode using the GT 520). Will get in screenshots / pics with the projector later

Quote:


Display Support:
4 displaysMulti Monitor
2560x1600Maximum Digital Resolution
2048x1536Maximum VGA Resolution
YesHDCP
YesHDMI3
One Dual Link DVI-I, One Dual Link DVI-D, One HDMI, One DisplayPortStandard Display Connectors
InternalAudio Input for HDMI

Specifications on the NVIDIA website suggest max 2560 x 1600 digital resolution.
Is this an error on their part? Is this why you tested 4k from the AMD card rather than the 680?

SBR
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post #24 of 237
3/24/12 at 12:59pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandy B Ridge View Post

Specifications on the NVIDIA website suggest max 2560 x 1600 digital resolution.
Is this an error on their part? Is this why you tested 4k from the AMD card rather than the 680?

SBR

The slides deck given to reviewers states that it does support 4K over HDMI. Our 680 sample is not in the same place as where the 4K projector is, and that is why we were unable to test out 4K support of the 680 in time for the review. As soon as we get it working (or we can confirm it doesn't work), I will post here.
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post #25 of 237
3/25/12 at 2:07am
Aren't we at a point where unless you game, you don't a dedicated video card? The builtin gpu in Sandy Bridge, Ivy, Haswell etc is more than enough for HTPC duties and will keep getting more powerful.

AMD has even more powerful gpu capabilities in their low end chips as well. Both AMD and Nvidia will need to offer something special to convince people to buy a gpu.
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post #26 of 237
3/25/12 at 8:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Defcon View Post

Aren't we at a point where unless you game, you don't a dedicated video card? The builtin gpu in Sandy Bridge, Ivy, Haswell etc is more than enough for HTPC duties and will keep getting more powerful.

AMD has even more powerful gpu capabilities in their low end chips as well. Both AMD and Nvidia will need to offer something special to convince people to buy a gpu.

For me that's true, but some people use their Htpc for games. It will be interesting to see what happens when 4k hits the mainstream and there is actually 4k content. I assume that CPU/gpu combos will have advanced to catch up.
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post #27 of 237
3/26/12 at 7:01am
Can anyone confirm whether the GTX 680 supports proper HDMI audio bitstreaming for lossless compression codecs like DTS Master HD or Dolby TrueHD?
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post #28 of 237
3/26/12 at 10:05am
It probably does, given how modern it is.
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post #29 of 237
3/26/12 at 10:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MlNDBOMB View Post

It probably does, given how modern it is.

The 570 and 580 do not bitstream, so who knows?
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post #30 of 237
3/26/12 at 1:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jakmal View Post

There hasn't been much coverage of the HTPC capabilities of the new Kepler GPUs from NVIDIA. I hope we can use this thread to exchange information and provide tips on using a Kepler GPU in a HTPC.

The important HTPC features available in the Kepler series (in addition to whatever was provided by the Fermi family) are:


3. Full support for HDMI 1.4a : Ability to drive 4096 x 2160 at 24 Hz over a single HDMI port. (Will be testing this out shortly).


considering HDMI 1.4a ,I'm sure it supports loss less bit streaming.
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