While HD MPEG-2 and HD VC-1 can easily be handled by a modern Core 2 Duo, H.264 represents a substantial challenge. Even with the lower-quality broadcast H.264 sample, CPU utilization was already 63% on a Core 2 Duo, which probably the fastest SSE3 performance clock-for-clock. When it came to high-bitrate H.264, the CPU-only solution was inadequate. With H.264 likely becoming the preferred encoding CODEC for future Blu-Ray discs, clearly GPU-accelerated performance is needed. While CoreAVC has a reputation for high-performance H.264 decoding, it still wasn’t a match for PureVideo HD hardware. While we were unable to test CoreAVC with HD-DVD content due to AACS content restrictions, it seems unlikely that you will b able to play an ultra-high bitrate video clip such as Virtual Trip: Yozakura on even a Core 2 Duo Extreme.
Although we haven’t looked at picture quality in this article, it’s important to realize that while MPEG-2 decoding is easily handled with today’s CPUs, GPU-based decoding is still important from a picture quality perspective. To date, there are no software solutions that can provide high-quality content-based inverse telecine of 1080i sources. With hardware supporting content-based inverse telecine of 1080i HDTV, virtually every scripted high-definition TV show broadcast as 1080i60 can be reconstructed into the true 1080p24 image.
What about ATI’s performance? We’ll have those numbers for you in the future. Likewise, it will be interesting to see what sort of bitrates are going to be found in the upcoming H.264 Blu-Ray discs.
Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Review
With dual processing cores clocked at 3.33GHz, Intel's Core 2 Duo E8600 is a serious performer, but it's an even more impressive OC'er. Check out Brandon's thoughts on the CPU in our Core 2 Duo E8600 review!
Madden 09 Review
With solid graphics and gameplay, there's a lot to like with EA's latest iteration of Madden, but Brett reports that there are still some annoying AI quirks that hold the game back. Read on for the full review!
Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon 4850 Dual Slot Review
The Sapphire Toxic 4850 is loaded with features. The card ships with an all-copper dual slot, dual heatpipe cooler from Zalman, the VF900-Cu. But that's not all, the board is also OC'ed to higher speeds than any other 4850 card on the market. In this article we officially review the Sapphire Toxic 4850 as well as its younger brother the 4850 Dual Slot. Both cards deliver cooling that's significantly improved over ATI's cooler. Find out how well these cards perform in today's review!
Soul Calibur IV Review
Are the additions of Darth Vader and Yoda enough to carry the Soul Calibur series? Yes and no. Brett finds the fighting enjoyable, but Namco Bandai's isn't perfect. Read the pros and cons in today's review!
FiringSquad Rumor Patrol: Apple, NVIDIA
FiringSquad's top secret division looks at technology rumors floating around the 'net. In this round: NVIDIA and Apple!
Palit GeForce 9800 GT Sonic Review
Rather than rely on NVIDIA's reference board design for the 9800 GT, Palit has incorporated a number of improvements into their 9800 GT Sonic, including a 3-phase board design, dual-slot cooling, and OC'ed clock speeds. How does the 9800 GT card perform in comparison to the popular GeForce 8800 GT and a host of other GPUs? Find out in this article!
Budget Gaming PC Roundup
In this article, Jakes takes a look at three different $1,000 gaming PCs from CyberPower, iBuyPower, and MainGear PC. Each company took a different approach to tackling the $1,000 budget, and one company really stood out with their extraordinary build quality. See how the various PCs fared in our Budget Gaming PC Roundup!
PhysX Performance Update: GPU vs. PPU vs. CPU
After posting our PhysX story last week, many of you wrote in asking for PPU benchmarks, so today we've delivered! Armed with our original BFG PhysX card, we booted up an X48 Core 2 QX9650 testbed and re-ran the benchmarks. See how the PPU fared against the CPU and GPU in this quick article!
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Performance Preview
With 1600 shaders, 2.0GB of GDDR5 memory, and 2.4 TeraFLOPS of graphics horsepower, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is one impressive performer. See how the card stacks up running 8xAA against SLI GeForce GTX 280 and 260 in single card and 4-Way CrossFire. We've also thrown in 24xAA benchmarks as well. Is 2GB of memory really necessary? All the answers lie inside!
PhysX Performance with GeForce
Later this month NVIDIA will open up GeForce-based PhysX processing to their entire range of GeForce 8/9 and GTX 200 GPUs. In this article we take a look at their performance (as well as ATI's Radeon HD 4000 series), in four different PhysX applications. What kind of performance can you expect? Find out inside!
Test Setup
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
SU
furl
