CeBIT 2008 Integrated graphics grow upBy Charlie Demerjian in Hannover: Wednesday, 05 March 2008, 9:00 AMAMD RELEASED THE 780G chipset yesterday, and it is going to change the graphics game. The firm has done the seemingly impossible - made an integrated graphics part that does not immediately draw ridicule from all sides. It is actually good.The main trick AMD pulled out of the hat is to change the specs on what an IGP (Integrated Graphics Part) is. In the past, you took the lowest end of your last generation GPU and cut it in half to make the IGP. Gaming was awful, it barely got out of it's own way, and was on the receiving end of howls of laughter from anyone involved.780G made the laughs stop. AMD decided to take a full GPU and put it on the chipset, so what you have is a full Radeon HD24xx (RV620) on board, video acceleration, 3D and all. In the integrated GPU world, this means that the chips will blow all comers out of the water. In my testing, they do, handily, but more on that in a bit.There are two variants, 780G and 780V, with the V standing for Value, or lower-end part. The graphics core on the G is labeled Radeon HD 3200, the V is the 3100. The main difference between the two is the clock speed, G is 500MHz, V is 350.Both have enough features to choke a horse, 12 USB2 ports, six SATA with eSATA support, HDMI, DVI and display port, along with 22 PCIe2 lanes. The G has UVD and Hybrid Crossfire as well, the V has those fused off. The one thing lacking is RAID5 support, and that comes in Q2 with the SB750, the replacement for the SB700.
Might we see a reversal of AMD's fortunes in the near future? Remember, Intel's cash cow is mobos with integrated graphics.....
The performance drop is phenomenal – UVD works fantastically, but you do need to use appropriate software with the video acceleration option like Cyberlink PowerDVD. None of the previous machines could play back full-HD 1080p content (only the Intel is rated to though, and that's with MPEG-2 only), so for the first time we have an inexpensive, integrated system that's completely capable of even very high bitrate, HDCP encrypted, h.264 playback.