H.264 Hardware: Geforce 8500 vs 8600?

[PlazzTT]

Hi,

I'm going to get a new GFX card for hardware H.264 decoding, I'm thinking of going for the 8500. I never ever play games.

I don't want to spend the extra money on the 8600 for no reason.

Does the 8600 offer any improvement in H.264 decoding over the 8500 or are they the same?

I've seen Anandtech benchmarks of the 8600, but no comparison against the 8500 for H.264.

Thanks.

[foxyshadis]

They use the exact same decoding chip. What I don't know is whether they use it for deinterlacing as well, or if that's tied to shaders, but I'd reasonably expect the 8500 would do 1080i just as well.

[salehin]

AFAIK, the main 'extra' benefit is for the gamers. So i'd say no

There is pdf file available on nVidia's website where it compares the main features of various cards. But I can't locate it atm. Perhaps this (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/132) will help you to decide.

Goodluck :)

[mk.2]

There is pdf file available on nVidia's website where it compares the main features of various cards.
I found this PDF (http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/11036/PureVideo_Product_Comparison.pdf), comparing PureVideo features.

[PlazzTT]

Thanks! Looks like the 8500 will do the job all right.

From that handy PDF: "H.264 and VC-1 Decode Acceleration is not currently supported un Windows XP for the 8600 and 8500 series GPUs. This support will be added in upcoming ForceWare drivers release."

Has XP support been added now?

[wisodev]

Thanks! Looks like the 8500 will do the job all right.

From that handy PDF: "H.264 and VC-1 Decode Acceleration is not currently supported un Windows XP for the 8600 and 8500 series GPUs. This support will be added in upcoming ForceWare drivers release."

Has XP support been added now?

Yes, in the latest beta drivers. (http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_163.71.html)

Release notes: (http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/163.71/163.71_WinXP_ForceWare_Release_Notes.pdf)
Added PureVideo™ HD decode acceleration for GeForce 8600, 8500 and
8400 series GPUs.

[Surf]

Hey PlazzTT,

One leetle heads up: the HDCP feature may be important to you down the road. If not any 8400 or 8500 will do for most of the 8600s have that feature, not the 84 or 85.

[salehin]

I found this PDF (http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/11036/PureVideo_Product_Comparison.pdf), comparing PureVideo features.

Thanks for link, mk :)

[Shakey_Jake33]

So does actual GPU speed play no real role in the decoding capabilities? I have a 7900 GTO, and have often considered upgrading to a PureVideo2-capable card.

[foxyshadis]

On 8800 and the whole 7 series, it does, because they use shader pipelines to do the decoding. 8500 & 8600 have a dedicated decoding chip. (probably 8400 too? apparently it supports purevideo HD, unlike 8300.) On most of the 7-series you can't do both decoding HD and motion-adaptive deinterlacing at once.

[legoman666]

Unless you have an underpowered CPU, I don't see any reason to upgrade your video card just to get better decoding performance. You won't notice the difference between 90% CPU utilization and 5%. Besides, if you want to take advantage of PureVideo's decoding benefits, you're stuck using certain software players (PowerDVD? are there others or am i completely wrong on this?). Unless of course your CPU is limiting you currently, then by all means upgrade. But I would reccomend upgrading the CPU instead of the video card since that way you can use any software to play the video and as a bonus, you'll have a faster CPU.

[Turtleggjp]

Agreed, I have just gone through 3 different video cards with my Sempron 1.6GHz trying to get HD DVD playback to work. Here are my results:

Radeon 2400:
Excellent VC-1 performance (single digit CPU usage), but playback was limited to 1280x720.
Terrible H.264 performance.
Poor HDTV 1080i deinterlacing.

Radeon 2600:
Pretty much the same as the 2400, though I never tested the HDTV part before I sold this card.

GeForce 8500GT:
Drivers before Sept 28:
Terrible VC-1 and H.264 performance.
Good HDTV 1080i support though.

Drivers after Sept 28:
Still terrible VC-1 performance.
Better H.264 performance than the Radeons, but still not acceptable.
Bad HDTV 1080i support now.
Overscan problems on my HDTV that I haven't seen since my Radeon X800.

End Result: I have gone back to my Radeon X1300 and have a new Athlon64 X2 4400+ coming today. I saw my 4600+ handle VC-1 and H.264 HD DVDs perfectly using around 60% CPU average, so I figure this CPU will get the job done just fine. I am using XP SP2 for this system though, perhaps Vista would work better with this stuff, but I haven't bothered to try it yet.

Matt