Nvidia 9300/9400 Released - The best HTPC IGP?

Is the Nvidia 9300/9400 the best HTPC IGP on the market? Possibly. Looks like it has a few software/driver issues that are hopefully sorted out. But other than that the 9300 chipset is looking like an excellent platform, probably the best on the market for now.


AnandTech - The IGP Chronicles Part 3: NVIDIA's GeForce 9300
The Tech Report - Nvidia's GeForce 9300 chipset: Best integrated graphics chipset ever?
Tom's Hardware - Move Over G45: Nvidia's nForce 730i Arrives

To reiterate, the 9300 is pretty much a rehash of the 8200 chipset but for the Intel CPU's. My hope is that the 9300 is will be more actively developed than the 8200 was. I have a feeling Nvidia will be putting more resources on the 9300 since it's in widespread use in the new Apple laptops. So what does the 9300 bring to the table?

-Integrated HDMI
-5.1/7.1 multi-channel LPCM audio via HDMI unlike 780G/780GX
-no repeater bug like the G45
-works with odd HDMI implementations like Denon
-completely smooth 1080p/24 plaback unlike G45/780G
-low power consumption

There's a still 2 big outstanding issues before these boards hit the street though. Memory performance is slow because Nvidia supposedly didn't have the engineering resources to enable Nvidia's Advance Path in their WHQL drivers, and CAS4 timing wasn't available. Word is Nvidia and board vendors are working on getting this resolved, hopefully we'll see this fixed before the boards hit the street.

If you're looking at the various vendors, I highly suggest you look at the manual on each vendor's website carefully. I purchased the Giga-byte GA-M78SM-S2H (8200) mobo based on the assumption that Giga-byte is a good manufacturer and the various boards should be identical in functionality. I was burned on processor/memory timing option on the GA-M78SM-S2H however. Granular control over memory timing and CPU speeds and also GPU speed is missing on this board and when submitted a ticket with Giga-byte, their initial response was that all mATX boards were workstation not consumer boards (WTF?) and therefore have limited bios functionality. I responded with a link to various other mATX Giga-byte boards that had the features I was asking for, and the response from them was that the GA-M78SM-S2H is a lower priced board and therefore doesn't have that functionality. Hopefully on the Intel platform, CPU/RAM timing isn't as important as on AMD for HD media playback, but it is something to keep an eye out for.

Passive Radeon HD4550's trickling in...

It seems that even though the NDA was lifted on the ATI Radeon HD 4550 and HD 4350, it is still a bit late to market. However, we're starting to see passive HD4550 cards posted by vendors:

Giga-byte GV-R455D3-512I (2xDVI-I,1VGA,likely HDMI adapter)

Force3D HD4550 (DVI-I,1VGA,1 S-Video,likely HDMI adapter)

ATI HD4550 - No passive cards yet...

Last week the NDA on the ATI HD4550/HD4350 was lifted and most of the various ATI partners have released the specs of their cards. What I find odd is the reference ATI HD4550 card was passively cooled with no fan yet the vendors who have announced their HD4550's are actively cooled.














Currently announced HD 4550's (all actively cooled with fans):

SAPPHIRE HD 4550 512MB DDR3 PCI-E

ASUS EAH4550/DI/512MD3

PowerColor HD4550 512MB DDR3

HIS, MSI, and Diamond have yet to release their HD4550. Hopefully they don't put a fan on their cards.