nVidia 8300 or AMD 780G?

[Jesse]

Hi,

I am thinking of replacing my aging P4 based client with something both more powerful and more energy efficient. I would like to be able to play back OTA HD and HD-PVR recordings as well as view BD movies using only the IGP. I am looking at both the AMD 780G and nVidia 8300 chipsets.

Any feedback is appreciated.

TIA

Jesse

[Djc208]

My understanding is that only the 8300 offers 8-channel LPCM over the HDMI output. It may not be important to you, but it is a limitation for the AMD setup.
The AMD graphics core is more powerful and offloads VC-1 as well as H.264 but for a client it probably doesn't matter.
I think the 8300 is supposed to be slightly more energy efficient.
Look here: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/ for some reviews and info.

If none of these are important to you I'd say go with whichever one you like best. They should both do the trick, so I'd pick based on the rest of the package.

[stanger89]

The 8300 should decode VC1 and H.264 as well. I think it's actually slightly more powerful for video than the 780G.

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by stanger89

The 8300 should decode VC1 and H.264 as well. I think it's actually slightly more powerful for video than the 780G.

They will both decode both. My understanding is that the decode engine in AMD's GPUs is designed for both VC-1 and H.264. While nVidia only does part of the VC1 decoding on chip.

They look pretty evenly matched here. The AMD has better video offload (again, almost insignificant difference really) but the nVidia was supposed to have more settings for tweaking video playback.

Lots of data in the linked article, but ultimatly unless there's a killer feature you want I don't think either will make a bad HTPC.

[Polypro]

Totally unscientific and I don't want to start fan-war, but my wife's AMD Client machine (780G) gave me fits. VMR9 wouldn't work with any deinterlacing setting other than "Auto" in CCC, general instability, etc... I turned off the IGP, uninstalled the Catalyst drivers (except southbridge) and put in a 7600GT...now it runs great. Just one guy's experience with the 780G.

P

[AJ Bertelson]

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37128

may also want to look at the 7411(780M)

[gplasky]

Look at the 9300/9400 based boards.

9300 based

9400 based

Gerry

[Jesse]

Hi,

I am seriously considering the MSI "Diva" for my bedroom client. The audio amps on this board would simplify things a fair bit.

I have looked at the 9300/9400 boards, but I just cannot find an intel cpu that has a TDP of less than 65w. On top of that, the intel cpu's are more expensive than the AMD cpu's (AMD 45w cpu's can be had for less than $50.00).

Thanks for all the help. All input is appreciated.

Jesse