NVIDIA GeForce 8600: Full H.264 Decode Acceleration
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 27, 2007 4:34 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Test
We chose to test with four NVIDIA GPUs and two ATI GPUs. From NVIDIA we used the GeForce 8800 GTX, 8600 GTS, 8600 GT and the 7950 GT. The 8800 GTX and 7950 GT have the same VP as the rest of the GeForce 7 line, so they should offer fairly similar performance to everything else in NVIDIA's lineup that runs above 400MHz (remember that NVIDIA's VP stops working at core clocks below 400MHz). We included both 8600 cards to confirm NVIDIA's claim that the two 8600s would perform identically when it comes to H.264 decoding.
ATI uses its shader units to handle video decode, so there's more performance variance between GPUs. ATI only guarantees 720p or above decode acceleration on X1600 or faster GPUs and thus we included two parts in this review: a Radeon X1600 XT and a Radeon X1950 XTX; in theory the latter should be a bit better at its decode acceleration.
For our host CPU we chose the recently released Intel Core 2 Duo E6320, running at 1.86GHz with a 4MB L2 cache. As always, we reported both average and maximum CPU utilization figures. There will be some variability between numbers since we're dealing with manual measurements of CPU utilization, but you should be able to get an idea of basic trends.
We chose three HD-DVD titles for our performance test: Yozakura (H.264), The Interpreter (H.264) and Serenity (VC1). Yozakura is a Japanese HD-DVD that continues to be the most stressful test we've encountered; even on some of the fastest Core 2 systems it will still peak at 100% CPU utilization. Keep in mind that the NVIDIA GPUs don't handle CAVLC/CABAC for VC1 decode as VP2 is hardwired for H.264 decode, thus our VC1 test shouldn't show any tremendous improvement thanks to the new GPUs.
We used the Microsoft Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive for all of our tests.
| System Test Configuration | |
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 (1.86GHz/4MB) |
| Motherboard: | ASUS P5B Deluxe |
| Chipset: | Intel P965 |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 8.1.1.1010 |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.7 160GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 4) |
| Video Card: | NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT ATI Radeon X1950 XTX ATI Radeon X1600 XT |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 7.4 NVIDIA ForceWare 158.16 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1920 x 1080 - 32-bit @ 60Hz |
| OS: | Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit |
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yacoub - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Wait, so is H264 decoding is so terrible with gaming cards that anyone who wants to watch H264 encoded DVDs or videoclips would waste the extra $$$ to get a GTS?Outside of HTPCs there's really little market for it and even for HTPC there's likely something cheaper that gets the job done just as well (8600GT?).
Let's see what NVidia does for the G80 refresh in a few months... hopefully it includes putting out a card with the spec sheet the 8600GTS should have had: 64 stream processors and a 256-bit bus.
bearxor - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
EIGHTYFIVE
HUNDRED.
-----------------
That's the HTPC card. No one with a HTPC is going to spend $70-150 more if it performs exactly the same. But we don't know because no site seems to be able to buy one from newegg even though they've been available since last Tuesday. I guess they're waiting on nVidia to send review samples. I have a hundred bucks in hand ready to buy a 8500 but have been waiting to see how it performs with video decoding.
PLEASE!
kilkennycat - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
The 8600GT/GTS has HTPC built-in. THe 8500GT does NOT. It apparently is a vendor-supplied option in the case of the 8500GT.Newegg has been very careful in their listings of late to include "HDCP" in their text-description of graphics cards if they are aware of it being available. However, you should also check the manufacturer's website specsheet. If no mention of HDCP there... buyer beware !!
For an example, see the BFG website and the specs for the 8600GT and the 8500GT ( Other vendor websites very conveniently hide the HDCP detail in their summary descriptions, eg: eVGA )
See:-
http://www2.bfgtech.com/bfgr85256gte.aspx">http://www2.bfgtech.com/bfgr85256gte.aspx
and
http://www2.bfgtech.com/bfgr86256gtoce.aspx">http://www2.bfgtech.com/bfgr86256gtoce.aspx
Compare and look at the last couple of paragraphs, No sign of HDCP on the 8500 spec.....
kilkennycat - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Ooops sorry. No edit-function for past-postings on Anandtech nor Daily Tech. ( I suggest that Anand and DT personnel take a look at The Tech Report website http://techreport.com/">http://techreport.com/ for the proper way to handle edits in comment-postings....)Anyway, I meant to type HDCP on the first line of the above posting. So anybody with a H...T...P...C requiring H...D...C...P needs to be a little careful in their choice of whether to invest in a 8500 or a 8600 card and double-check the manufacturer's spec for the magic abbreviation "HDCP". Otherwise, iirc the video decoding capabilities of the two families are identical.
bearxor - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Yes, HDCP is a option on the 8500. Newegg has a HDCP 8500. The gigabyte with passive cooling, perfect for a htpc.The problem is the 'supposed to have'. Who knows? I've not seen benchmarks on it. the 8600GT and GTS are 'supposed to be' the same but in this review there were some significant differences between the two. At one point the 8600gt required 8 percent more cpu power. How do I know the 8500 won't be 10-15% higher than that?
A5 - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Is there any chance of a review of the various PVR/TV/MC packages out there, like a comparison between SageTV, BeyondTV, Vista MCE, and a free option (GB-PVR/MediaPortal)? No one has really done anything like that since you guys did it a few years ago, and a lot has changed, especially with the advent of practical HDTV cards.ssiu - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Are there any image quality differences between G8600 / older NVIDIAs / ATIs / no hardware acceleration?In your previous article http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2923">Coming Soon to HD DVD: Silicon Optix HD HQV you talked about both ATI/NVIDIA flunked the HQV DVD tests when the HQV tests first came out, but now had improved to almost perfect score, but then they all got 0 score on the "(beta) HD HQV" tests. Has the situation improved with newest hardware+driver?
Final Hamlet - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
It's really great to know that this GPU is better at playing back videos I would never buy because of the DRM crap on it...It's like buying a car for it's colour...
yzkbug - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
There is still no retail version of WinDVD HD available. Any news when InterVideo is going to release one? They must be really afraid to repeat thier previous fiasco when thier master key was revoked :)ZetaEpyon - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Was this article written a while back or something? I have an 8500GT in hand right now.