X-bit labs

Roundup of 7 Contemporary Integrated Graphics Chipsets for Socket 478 and Socket A Platforms (page 12)

Category: Chipsets

by Tim Tscheblockov

[ 07/05/2004 | 11:09 AM ]

Video Playback: MPEG-4, DVD, HDTV

Now let’s watch the integrated chipsets display videos of different formats.

MPEG-4 comes first. I took a copy of the “Shrek” movie (512x384, 130/96kbps video/audio, DIVXMPG4 V3/MPEG Layer-3).

The integrated graphics core doesn’t play any role in decoding MPEG-4 video, so this test characterizes the performance of the chipset proper rather than of the integrated graphics. The results – the CPU load – match the results of PCMark 2004’s memory test.

All the chipsets played the MPEG-4 video without problems, although the CPU load was sometimes very high. As you remember, I used top-end Pentium 4 3000MHz and Athlon XP 3000+ processors in the testbed, so a weaker system may load the CPU to the full, to skipped frames even!

I took a copy of the “What Dreams May Come” movie as an example of a DVD movie (720x576, 8712/448kbps video/audio, Interlaced MPEG-2/Dolby Digital (AC3)).

All the integrated chipsets easily accomplished the task of playing DVD back!

Last goes the hardest version of video, a HDTV “Step into Liquid” clip (1440x1080, 8000/384 kbps video/audio, Windows Media Video/Audio 9 Professional):

HDTV playback may be considered as a good test of the overall performance level of a system since it puts all the system components under a heavy load.

Judging by the CPU load percentages, the difference between chipsets belonging to one platform is small compared to the difference between the two platforms. All is indicative of the Athlon XP 3000+ doing a bad job of decoding this HDTV clip.

Well, we can get much more informative results by measuring the average video playback speed. Windows Media Player 9 outputs the statistics of video playback where it also shows the average playback speed, given in frames per second.

The clip is originally recorded at 24 fps rate, so only the i865G and the RADEON 9100 IGP can provide the required playback speed. Interestingly, none of the Socket A chipsets passed the test of HDTV playback even with an external graphics card. We probably can blame the insufficient optimization of the software decoder for AMD’s processors.