anybody else seen this.

Two things - nVidia has the same technology - hybrid SLI. Secondly, it doesn't help the low performing Phenom.

But it's still a step in the right direction.

Of course Nvidia's 7 chipset series are a joke. They are the 6 series with a extra PCI-2.0 bridge chip. Intel's integrated GPU is pitiful, which we already knew.
 
So, I'm assuming it runs about as fast as a x1900 or so? Not too shabby if so, although I guess more info will be needed to make a good decision on this. Of course this AMD chip will probably only support AMD processors which is a major turn off for anyone serious, will probably be really good for just getting a motherboard with it on and an old x2 chip for it to run older games and vista
 
lol, it runs no where NEAR the speed of a x1900, thats a what 100w gpu.

the 790g scores 1500 or so in 3dmark 06 at default settings, its poor but previous intergrated was getting like 300-400. its massively faster, remember its got all the normal chipset stuff and uses very little power and is incredibly cheap. I assume based on the cpu usage and it saying VC1 video that its similar video decode stuff as in the 3000 series chips which is great. Nvidia's competing product is apparently late, being delayed further maybe due to heat issues and it will only score 1100 or so in 3dmark, while the score isn't massively bigger, down at that end its big enough. Also nvidia, based on their discrete gpu's, won't have VC1 decoding on the gpu which is a pretty big deal as as far as i'm aware from little bits i've read in threads, most bluray stuff is now encoded with VC1 stuff in which AMD added and Nvidia left out which can be a big issue. not sure if its just one large part that nvidia can't do or if VC1 video simply can't be done on the nvidia gpu's and its cpu only, i suspect the former.

THe phenom, with a decent motherboard which by all accounts this gigabyte isn't, is actually very good. you can get them for £120ish, thats significantly cheaper, by 25% or so, than intels cheapest quad. Its more than enough for gaming and will actually improve, lower clock speeds are an issue in a couple of games as certainly not all games use quad cores easily. but a lot do and more all the time due to consoles all being 3 or more cores now so as basically all new games should use quad core the slightly lower clock speed on 2 cores is more than overcome by the other 2 cores being usable.

AMD are going back into their underdog = cheaper mode of fighting. look what they did to "high" end gpu's, they pushed the whole segment massively down in price making nvidia match them somewhat. Their quad cores in low production at the moment on a larger process is cheaper at the low end. when they switch to 45nm and all their fabs are making it they'll be pushing quad cores even lower in price while intel are on their next gen chips adding quite a crapload of stuff into the cpu from northbridge so die size will increase a lot and therefore cores per waifer will go down, prices won't be plummeting.


As for it being a turn off for "SERIOUS" users, by that i assume you mean 3dmark benchmarkers? As core 2 quads gain basically no gaming speed at all from 2.4Ghz to 4.5Ghz, as they aren't cpu limited. whats the percentage of computer owners to people who use their cpu's for encoding, 3d rendering? incredibly low. phenom isn't the benchmarkers choice right now, but thats it.

in under a month phenom b3's should be out, with much higher overclocking, fixed TLB issue and probably 2 chips coming in under the price of Intel's quads.

Intel are bringing discrete gpu's to the masses this year? or is it next, i'd expect something in terms of major upgrades to intergrated chipset gpu speed when that happens, or they might just end up going the multiple cores and one "intergrated" gpu designed core on die. which is something it looks like AMD are planning for the future.
 
In the case of the 780G and V (value) all they have done is stuck a full capability (instead of the usual cut down crippled versions) new version of the 2400 series gpu as the integrated graphics solution and are using hybrid crossfire to allow it to boost an additional PCI-e ATI graphics card. Hybrid crossfire will not work on the V version as it is disabled. The G version has a core speed of 500Mhz and the V version has a core of 350Mhz.

Here is some more info plus reviews:-

Techreport.

Inquirer.

Anandtech.

Hothardware.

Legit reviews.
 
Excellent post. Well constructed, well argued and I couldn't agree more.

wait, this is OCUK, flame me damn you flame me.

or did i wear my flame resistant suit for nothing :(


:p



I was actually reading on the Inq some more about it, with a 45W amd dual core chip and the 780g onboard we're looking apparently at 50-60W load usage playing back high def content. with a 3450 card added in, in hybrid crossfire it becomes an incredibly cheap 4500 3dmark06 machine. Also that onboard chip apparently completely fanless will do 800Mhz from 500 stock, and with fans has hit 1100mhz giving it a 3000 3dmark score.

Its completely useless asa 1920x1200 top whack gaming solution but that 3000 score from a single intergrated, incredibly cheap board with a cheap cpu has to be easily the cheapest way to get into real gaming. even with a phenom they are running very low power. A 1.8Ghz phenom quad has been announced, same process, hopefully b3 stepping, probably as its a 65W part, which is fantastic for a quad core, but if a 2.2Ghz chip is only £125 or so now, a 1.8Ghz chip must mean sub £100 for a quad core. AMD is just going hardcore on prices, really hardcore. Ok if you want an overclocked bench rig you might want an intel (just now), but most other area's amd is a very very good choice and probably cheaper in all area's.

Its worth noting that a dual cpu setup AMD's FX stuff might be very interesting, 2 quad cores when fixed and running a bit faster will be MASSIVELY cheaper than Intels skulltrail which is £400 for a mobo and £1100 PER CPU. we could be looking at a AMD equivilent with £200-300 board, and £200-300 per cpu, without the need for very expensive FBdimms with horrible latency. Skulltrail sucks for gaming as the memory latency kills most of the benefits as Anandtech's review showed. AMD could well even with slower chips offer the best option at all levels.
 
In the case of the 780G and V (value) all they have done is stuck a full capability (instead of the usual cut down crippled versions) new version of the 2400 series gpu as the integrated graphics solution and are using hybrid crossfire to allow it to boost an additional PCI-e ATI graphics card. Hybrid crossfire will not work on the V version as it is disabled. The G version has a core speed of 500Mhz and the V version has a core of 350Mhz.

that is essentially all they have done, but they've managed to make the current chips so cheap to make and the price they are intergrated into the mobo is what is really impressive, added to the power levels and heat. As i said 1100 mhz on the core doubling the gpu performance has been done simply by adding a small fan. it has hit 800-900mhz completely passive. nvidia/intel simply don't have anything that will run as a home theatre as cheap, as quiet, or as fast, AMD won the trifector. Any other intergrated is crap comparitively, and price was AMD wins again as its cheaper than a intel board + discrete gpu to do high def playback.

Biggest thing i hit on aswell was a quad core at sub £100, of the "new" cores from Intel is TWICE the price. All that extra cache means the smaller process isn't really smaller and they will almost certainly have lower yield on a newer process hence no price drops yet.

Dell, HP, whoever, they can simply make so many amd combo's with all the right advertising words a lot cheaper. Quad core can come on a system £100 cheaper just on the chip, cheaper motherboards, intergrated graphics.
 
So, I'm assuming it runs about as fast as a x1900 or so?

LMAO 39fps in farcry and 20fps on HL2-EP2 and that's only on 1024x768, so no it's no where near as good as x1900... It's a performance breakthrough for integrated graphics and I can see a lot of laptops using it in the future but any half serious gamer will still opt for a discreet graphics card, and if you're adding a graphics card there is no point to go for the 780 chipset and less powerful phenom.

Hybrid graphics is a good idea but then if you have a powerful graphics card it's not like the onboard GFX is going to make a lot of difference to the framerate. Instead I think the onboard integrated graphics can be used for maybe physics acceleration.

Its worth noting that a dual cpu setup AMD's FX stuff might be very interesting, 2 quad cores when fixed and running a bit faster will be MASSIVELY cheaper than Intels skulltrail which is £400 for a mobo and £1100 PER CPU. we could be looking at a AMD equivilent with £200-300 board, and £200-300 per cpu, without the need for very expensive FBdimms with horrible latency. Skulltrail sucks for gaming as the memory latency kills most of the benefits as Anandtech's review showed. AMD could well even with slower chips offer the best option at all levels.

Have you seen the xeon section on OCUK the cheapest is actually £150 per CPU.
 
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nope i hadn't seen that. its also only 2Ghz, we shall see. i'm personally not entirely sure which cpu's can be used with skulltrail "other" than they are 771. All the reviews only showed the top end £1100 ones being used with it.

THe point that it only uses fbdimms which aren't widely available and are certainly not cheap, added to the fact that all gaming benchmarks show the ridiculous latency penalty to increase bandwidth killed off gaming performance in so far as the extra speed basically ofset the penalty of high latency. frequently the x38/48/p35 setup beat the skulltrail in dual quad core mode because of the high latency.

So even with the £150 chips it still won't be faster than a cheaper AMD set up which won't have the penalty of high latency high cost FBDIMMS. So AMD's dual cpu 8 core setup will still be massively more attractive, more available and most likely faster in gaming as well as cheaper. Considering it would win on price, and performance for gaming and anything else that takes a huge penalty hit from running in higher latency, its still the massively more attractive 8 core setup. Frankly i'd never get either, if i won 25 million on the Euro lottery tomorrow(which is only marginally less likely as actually winning it on the day it runs on :p ) I'd still buy neither.

Lowest cost htpc, AMD hands down. Lowest power high def/basic gaming setup, AMD. Lowest cost mid range gaming, probably AMD because a 3450 with heavily clocked intergrated core is an incredibly cheap way to mid range performance to be honest, maybe still AMD. High end gaming, swings and roundabouts. IF a 1.8Ghz phenom is B3 and hits 3Ghz and is indeed under £100 its no doubt AMD< with cheaper quadfire boards available aswell. Cheapest fastest gfx card at the moment, AMD.

Most attractive "home" not quite server dual cpu setup, AMD.

Flat out balls out performance when overclocked its clearly INtel hands down, if i did encoding or 3dwork properly right now I'd go intel i'm not an idiot. But frankly for gaming, other than 2 games in the past 3 years, and 3dmark there aren't cpu limited games, a dual core at 2.5Ghz is enough for maxing out gpu's at the highest resolutions in almost all games. with a quad core 2.5Ghz is certainly enough and will increase in effectiveness as more games properly use quad cores before they start to run out of power. My Q6600 at 4Ghz and my phenom at stock barely show a difference in games, once i put the phenom up to 2.6Ghz i can't see any difference at all. Neither can i see the difference with my Q6600 at 2.6Ghz.


I'm all happy with new kit too, and obviously i've clocked my Q6600 plenty high on water to see what its capable of. but frankly i can't see or feel that in any gaming or any day to day use. I'd buy a 2/3 cost quad core any day of the week because in the end, its £50 cheaper and for most peoples use you wouldn't see any difference in the slightest.
 
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