In this test, we take a look at the performance of the 3 integrated graphics chipsets, SIS 771/966 vs NF 6100/410 vs ATi RS485/SB460 in image quality during playback of DVD using HQV.

First, we tested the WMVHD clip "Step into Liquid 1080p" edition. This HD clip takes advantage of NV's so called Purevideo. In fact, when we run the clip on the NV6100 platform using the PowerDVD player, hardware acceleration checkbox is greyed out. A check on the spec sheet of 6100/410 indicates that it does not support hw acceleration of WMVHD.

With that in mind, we tested the same clip on the three platforms with AM2 X2 4000+ and 2GB of DDR2-800 from Corsair.  The SiS 771 averages around 33% cpu utilisation while the ATi took around 35% and NV took around 34%. All the three integrated chipsets have no problems decoding the WMVHD clip and was able to handle it quite well.

In a seperate test, we have a MPEG4 AVC TS clip. It is a transport stream which I download off the air from the local broadcaster. We played back the clip in 1920x1080 and it worked flawlessly. From the video, it can be seen that the quality on the SIS 771 is much better compared to the NVIDIA 6100. The sharpness and contrast is there. The ATi also did quite well too. All 3 chipset exhibits high CPU utilisation of approx 90% throughout the playback.

Next >>>