|
Page 1 of 13
 Since the number of motherboards based on AMD 780G chipset gets bigger and bigger, we decided to compare them forthright and to identify possible differences. Popularity of this chipset is shown in accessibility of motherboard based on it, superb integrated graphics and few more useful options. This kind of systems are great for multimedia computers because 780G will provide for this type of machines enough performances and of course, like any ATi, good display of colors.
Hybrid CrossFire
|
| To complete story about 780G chipset we decided to install Vista OS and then tried out hybrid CrossFire. By doing this, we can determine how big performance jump is when we add one very cheap graphics card in PCIe x16slot and of course to compare these performances with more expensive and with cheaper graphics solutions. For this test we were using ATi X1550 as weakest GPU, then HD 3450 with DDR2 memory for creating hybrid CrossFire and one HD 3470 with DDR3 memory that can be categorized as top GPU. Certainly, on all this we will add results for 780G chipset to have a better insight on power and performance jump ratio, derived by hybrid CrossFire. If you are looking to buy computer we have a little advice for you: there is no room for X1550 beside 780G integrated solutions because it’s much slower and takes extra space inside of case. Radeon HD 3470 is very strong trump in this competition and it can easily beat 780G in this race, and it can even bear hybrid CrossFire. On the other hand, creating hybrid with CrossFire 780G (HD 3200) + HD 3450 you can improve your 780G motherboard and get very good performance jump for a very little invested money. Since all these performances are not sufficient for some serious playing of new games, we suggest you to look at table “Hybrid CrossFire” and conclude by yourself how big are differences in performances. |
AMD ATi 780G
Main characteristics of this chipset we already reviewed when it was launched, but as this is a big test, we will repeat once more basic specifications. This chipset has integrated DirectX 10 graphics accelerator with great performances (compared to other integrated solutions present on the market at a moment).
It has support for D-SUB, DVI and HDMI outputs for monitor, which provides their popularity in multimedia applications. As any integrated solution, it reserves part of system memory to satisfy needs of video card. One of novelties is certainly “SIDE PORT” which is actually integrated video memory. This means that 780G chipset with “SIDE PORT” actually has integrated video memory, in amount of 64MB.
With motherboards with “SIDE PORT” it is possible to use only integrated memory or to combine it with system memory (performances are certainly better than for regular 780G chipset). Graphics card integrated in 780G chipset is Radeon HD 3200, and it enables creating of hybrid CrossFire, which will be discussed later. This chipset has support for full HD acceleration up to 1080p resolution, fortifying pleasant playing of Blu-Ray discs without load on central processor.
Testing
First we will do comparison test of motherboards based on AMD ATi 780G controller logic, which should show how much every manufacturer “took out” from this chipset. After that we’ll compare 780G chipset as standalone solution with hybrid Crossfire based on AMD ATi graphics accelerators from lower price segment.
Forasmuch this combination can be considered as middle class, we decided to use processor from the same class, so we pick AMD triple core Phenom 8750. This processor works at 2.4GHz, has 3x512KB of secondary cache memory, while it has L3 cache as much as quad core Phenom does, i.e. 2MB.
Of course, we provided 2x1GB Kingston HyperX memory (Phenom prefers faster memory modules) that was set at 1066MHz, which should be optimal for this processor. Motherboards’ evaluation tests were conducted under Windows XP Pro SP2 operative system, while hybrid CrossFire was compared under Vista 32-bit SP1, because it is impossible to create it under Windows XP.
|
MotherBoards 
