NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 220: 40nm and DX10.1 for the Low-End
by Ryan Smith on October 12, 2009 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
A Better HTPC Card: MPEG-4 ASP Decoding & LPCM Audio
Along with the addition of DirectX 10.1 functionality, the latest members of NVIDIA’s GPU lineup have picked up a couple of new tricks specifically geared towards HTPC use.
The first of these is a newer video decoding engine. Officially NVIDIA is moving away from the VP* moniker, but for the time being we’re sticking to it as we don’t have a better way of easily differentiating the feature sets of various video decoding engines. NVIDIA’s vendors are calling this VP4, and so are we.
Successive VPs have focused on adding support for additional video formats. VP2 had full H.264 decoding, and VP3 (which never made it into a GTX 200 series part) added VC-1 decoding. For VP4, NVIDIA has added support for full decoding of MPEG-4 (Advanced) Simple Profile, better known as DivX or XviD. With this addition, NVIDIA can now offload the decoding of most of the MPEG formats – the only thing not supported is MPEG-1, which as the oldest codec is trivial to decode on a CPU anyhow.
To be frank, we’re a bit puzzled by this latest addition. By no means are we unhappy (we’ll always take more acceleration!), but MPEG-4 ASP isn’t particularly hard to decode. Even an underclocked Nehalem with only a single core (and no HT) enabled can handle HD-resolution MPEG-4 ASP with ease; never mind what even a low-end dual-core Pentium or Celeron can do. This would be a good match for the Atom, but those almost always use integrated graphics (and Ion isn’t slated to get VP4 any time soon). So while this addition is nice to have, it’s not the kind of game changer that adding H.264 and VC-1 were.
The unfortunate news here is that while the hardware is ready, the software is not, and this is something that caught us off-guard since these parts have been going to OEMs since July. NVIDIA has yet to enable MPEG-4 ASP acceleration in their drivers, and won’t be doing so until the release 195 drivers. So at this point we can’t even tell you how well this feature works. We’re not pleased with this, but we’re also not particularly broken up about it since as we just mentioned the cost of CPU decoding isn’t very much in the first place.
On a final note with video decoding, one of NVIDIA’s marketing pushes with this launch is touting the fact that they have been working with Adobe to bring video decode acceleration to Adobe Flash 10.1, and that the GT 220/G 210 series are well suited for this. This is going to be absolutely fantastic to have since Flash Video is a CPU-hog, but Flash 10.1 is still 6 months (or more) away from being released. More to the point, as far as we know this is being implemented via DXVA, which means everyone else will get acceleration too. And notably, this is only for H.264, as VP6 (the older Flash Video codec) is not supported in hardware on any card.
Moving on, the other new HTPC feature is that NVIDIA has finally stepped up their game with respect to HDMI audio on cards with discrete GPUs. Gone is the S/PDIF cable to connect a card to an audio codec, which means NVIDIA is no longer limited to 2-channel LPCM or 5.1 channel DD/DTS for audio. Now they are passing audio over the PCIe bus, which gives them the ability to support additional formats. 8 channel LPCM is in, as are the lossy formats DD+ and 6 channel AAC. However Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio bitstreaming are not supported, so it’s not quite the perfect HTPC card. Lossless audio is possible through LPCM, but there won’t be any lossless audio bitstreaming.
Finally, we’re still waiting to see someone do a passive cooled design for the GT 220. The power usage is low enough that it should be possible with a dual-slot heatsink, but the only cards we’ve seen thus far are actively cooled single-slot solutions with the heatsink sticking out some.
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Silverel - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
It doesn't really matter though does it?nVidia has you confused, and thusly, their plan has succeeded. It's really the price/performance ratio that it's at making any difference. Don't bother yourself with details on the renaming schemes. It's a new shiny!
MadMan007 - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
lol. "These aren't the details you're looking for" *waves hand* Yeah I know it's just a nitty gritty detail and the performance is what matters. I'd still like to know though :)Seramics - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Upon checkin, it seems that there is indeed this 48 SP spec for 9600 GSO but its proper name is 9600GSO 512. So nv use the same exact thing (8800GS) and renamed it to another product (9600GSO) without improving anything. And now queitly chg the 9600GSO and lower the SP to half and din even chg the name? Why dun they release a 120 SP's GTX 280? Or simply renamed 9800 GTX to GTX 280?Lonyo - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Actually they did take a 9800 and release it as a GTX280, of a fashion.The mobile GTX280 is just an 8800/9800 card rebadged and with all its SPs enabled (128). The mobile 8800/9800 had only either 96 or 112 ( I can't remember), so they made a 128 SP version and called it the GTX280-M
Seramics - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Why is my fav site which is Anandtech can make such lousy silly mistakes? Ryan Smith, where did ur 9600 GSO came from? The spec of it is all wrong. It is a renamed 8800 GS with the same G92 core as 8800GT/8800GTS/9800GTX. It basically got 96 SP's with 192 bit memory bus. Even nvidia website is correct for a change. Look. http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...tell me, enlighten me, where did ur 9600 GSO come from??????
Ryan Smith - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
There are 2 9600GSOs. The old one was G92 based and had 96SP. The new one is G94 based (9600GT) and has 48SP. The old one is no longer produced, while the new one is the current 9600GSO, and is the GSO NVIDIA and its partners are referring to when they compare the GT 220 to the 9600GSO.We actually tested an old model 9600GSO, but that's only because it's the slowest thing we have on-hand that's above a 9500GT.
Seramics - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Thanks for replying Ryan. I just cant help thinking nvidia has gone to another low yet again. This new products coverage is basically too little too late and too slow and too expensive. Ppl looking for low end card can get their needs met by going for equivalently priced ATI cards. Despite releasing such slow card n so late in the market, they still refuse to sell it at lower price. How can GT220 worth USD69-79? A Radeon HD4670 easily can outperform it while costing similar or less (depending on ur location). And wht is G210 crap? 16 SP's? Nvidia muz be joking and must be laughing at every single ignorant noob stupid customers who would purchase a crap like that for like what? 40-50 dollars? Gotta be kidding me man. It doesnt even worth half that amount. Mayb if its 10 dollars, I will recommend it to ppl with 10 dollars budget for graphics card.gwolfman - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
To me, this looks like nVidia's trial run of some GT300 technology (audio over PCIe bus for example) before it's released.samspqr - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
well, to me this looks like nvidia taking too long to finish a product that was nearly done 3 quarters agoby nvidia's 2009 standards, you can expect GT300 to come out around 2010Q2
(I know they'll have some sort of launch much earlier, but I'd expect it to be just press samples, with less than spectacular clocks and a dustbuster fan, sitting somewhere in between 5870 and 5870x2, for a price that's irrelevant because of lack of availability... until some new respin comes around, as I said, close to 2010Q2)
yacoub - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Two years after releasing the 800GT, NVidia releases a card with... half the performance!lol. what a waste. so how's the 5770/5750 review coming along? that'll be more interesting.