AMD 780G integrated DirectX10.1 chipset Review/Verdict

VerdictWould we recommend the 780G? Provided you don’t want to play gamesthen the answer is a big ‘Yes’. If your gaming requirements are modest,the answer is less clear as you’ll need a graphics card and there’snothing to stop you plugging an HD 3450, 3650 or 3850 into a cheap Core2 Duo PC. Still, for integrated graphics performance, neither Intel norNvidia come close.

AMD’s 700-series chipsets covers all the motherboard options that agamer could require for the quad-core Phenom processor. There’s the790FX with support for CrossFireX to handle three or four graphicscards, the 790X that does CrossFire with two cards, and the 770 thatcombines Phenom with a single PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 slot.
And now for those members of the buying public who don’t play gamesall the time there’s the new 780G. The G suffix indicates that thischipset includes an integrated graphics core, though it has a PCIe 2.0slot too.

AMD's 780G: integrated graphics to beat Intel and Nvidia?

The 780G's integrated GPU is called the Radeon HD 3200. There's acut-down version of the 780G called the 780V that has a Radeon HD 3100IGP. The 3200 runs faster than the 3100 but its main advantage is thatit supports Hybrid Graphics. In the past, when you plugged a graphicscard into a motherboard with integrated graphics, the IGP was disabled.With Hybrid graphics, the IGP works co-operatively with the graphicscard, CrossFire-style.
Clearly, it makes little sense to ‘assist’ an HD 3850 or 3870 withthe integrated HD 3200 but when you use a £29 Radeon HD 3450 graphicscard the effect can be seen quite clearly. An HD 3450 runs its 40unified shaders at 600MHz, while the 256MB of local memory has aneffective speed of 1000MHz. That's similar to the 780G's spec exceptthat the clock speeds are faster and the memory is on board.

GPU + IGP = Hybrid Graphics

Run 3DMark06 on the 780G IGP and you’ll get a score of 1100 whichrises to 1500 marks on the HD 3450. That’s with AMD Catalyst 8.2 driverpackage, which disables the IGP when you use an add-in graphics card.The latest version of the software, Catalyst 8.3, allows you to run thetwo graphics chips together in CrossFire or, if you prefer, you mightuse the two chips to control as many as four displays.

We were very impressed by 780G and whole heartedly recommend it foranyone who is building a Media Centre PC. Having said that, we do havesome thoughts that aren’t exactly reservations but which make us wondera bit. Hybrid graphics sound great but the idea of plugging in a £29graphics card to increase 3DMark06 from 1100 marks to 2000 seems a bitfutile. It’s not going to have a huge effect on even a basic game, andif you plug in a more serious graphics card such as an HD 3850 then theIGP will only play a tiny part in the proceedings. Hybrid graphicsworks but it seems rather pointless.

Blu-ray Playback CPU Utilisation Results

Shorter bars are better

It’s a similar story with the DirectX 10.1 support. Tick on the box,extra feature, no harm in having it but honestly, can you imagineplaying a DirectX 10 or 10.1 game on 780G? Not a chance.

Power Draw Results

Power draw in Watts (W)

And then there’s the spanking new SB700 southbridge chip, which hasbeen in the works for ages and which finally makes its debut with 780G.It seems to work well enough but USB and SATA performance barely merita mention with this chipset and that’s all the new southbridge bringsto the party.