Zotac's Cedar Trail ZBOX ID80 Uses Discrete GPU

Intel announced its 32nm Atom platform for netbooks/nettops at the end of last year. Codenamed Cedar Trail the new Atom doesn't really change CPU performance all that much but includes a new GPU block from Imagination Technologies. The PowerVR SGX 545 comes with all Cedar Trail Atom CPUs by default, however it looks like due to driver issues the integrated graphics on the very first Cedar Trail systems will be disabled.

Zotac's ZBOX ID80 is the first Cedar Trail nettop we've seen announced and it ships with Cedar Trail graphics disabled. In its stead Zotac is using a GeForce GT 520M from NVIDIA. I'm hearing that fixed drivers for Cedar Trail, enabling integrated graphics, will be available sometime in February although that will really only matter for new systems as the DVI/HDMI outputs on the ID80 are directly wired to the onboard 520M.

The ID80 uses an updated version of Zotac's ZBOX chassis (no word on the changes yet) with support for two DDR3-1066 SO-DIMMs and a single 2.5" 3Gbps SSD/HDD. The ID80 Plus is the same platform but it comes equipped with 2GB of DDR3 and a 320GB 5400RPM hard drive. 

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Discrete HTPC GPU Shootout

Discrete HTPC GPU Shootout

The popularity of Intel's HD Graphics amongst HTPC enthusiasts and the success of the AMD APUs seem to indicate that the days of the discrete HTPC GPU are numbered. However, for those with legacy systems, a discrete HTPC GPU will probably be the only way to enable hardware accelerated HD playback.

In this context, both AMD and NVIDIA have been serving the market with their low end GPUs. These GPUs are preferable for HTPC scenarios due to their low power consumption and ability to be passively cooled. Today, we will be taking a look at four GPUs, two each from AMD (6450 and 6570) and NVIDIA (GT 430 and GT 520), for which passively cooled solutions exist in the market.

Gaming benchmarks are not of much interest to the HTPC user interested in a passively cooled solution, and those will not be presented. Instead, there will take a quick look at the specs of the four cards and a presentation of the HQV benchmarks. We will then see how the cards handle custom refresh rates and fare at deinterlacing. After this, we will proceed to identify a benchmark for evaluating HTPC GPUs and see how the cards fare in the benchmark. We will see how one of the cards springs a surprise and analyze the cause.
Towards the end, we will have a couple of sections to cover some developments in the area of open source software for HTPCs.

Read on to find out which discrete GPU fits your usage scenario and how to tweak it for a good HTPC experience.

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Lucid Enables Quick Sync with Discrete Graphics on Sandy Bridge

If you read our Sandy Bridge Review you’ll know that we were very excited about Intel’s Quick Sync hardware transcode engine. It easily offers at least twice the performance of existing GPU based transcoding solutions without sacrificing image quality. There’s just one little problem: you can’t use Quick Sync you're using a discrete GPU, you need to use Intel's processor graphics.

Lucid presented a potential solution to the problem at this year’s CES. Through software alone, Lucid is able to copy the frame buffer from a discrete PCIe GPU to the frame buffer of SNB’s HD Graphics in main memory. The result is that you can hook a single monitor up to your motherboard’s video output and use a discrete GPU when you want it. Lucid’s technology would enable switchable graphics on the desktop, without any hardware requirements (it still obviously won’t work on P67, shame on Intel).

To demonstrate the technology Intel ran an H67 motherboard with a GeForce GTX 480. Lucid’s software was installed which allowed for the GTX 480 to run and its frame buffer output to be copied to main memory and sent out via Intel’s Flexible Display Interface through the DVI port on the back of the motherboard. 

At the same time, Intel demonstrated that it could run a Quick Sync enabled transcode in Cyberlink’s Media Espresso 6 - all thanks to Lucid’s software.

Lucid expects that there will only be a 1 - 3% impact in performance (although that’s something we’d have to see for ourselves), but there’s no firm date on when the driver will be available. I’m expecting a beta version of Lucid’s software in the coming weeks however.

Motherboard manufacturers could bundle Lucid’s solution with their boards to avoid upsetting end users thanks to Intel’s Quick Sync oversight. There’s still no getting around the fact that you can’t overclock your CPU on H67 motherboards. You’ll still have to wait for Z68 to fix that problem.

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