Video Playback Performance

NOTE: In this section we used a FX-57 with 2x512mb of PC3200 on an ATI crossfire reference board.

One of the big advantages of having a high end graphics card is its ability to assist with the processing of video files. Many of the cards on the market allow you to use your GPU to assist with processing of Windows Media video for example however at this time only the X1K series of cards from ATI allow you to process H.264 content on your GPU.

So with this in mind, and wary that this feature will become more and more important as increasing levels of content are produced in H.264 (think Blu-ray and HD-DVDs) here is how your card will enhance the system performance in video playback should you choose to buy an X1900 AIW.

Windows Media Video

In this test we’ve taken a clip from the Windows Media HD site (1080 clip) and played it back with and without GPU WMV acceleration enabled. The test uses Media Player 10’s latest build.

dont have flash installed? then click here for a jpeg

 

H.264 Video

For our H.264 test we have taken a video encoded in H.264 and played it back through WMP 10 with and without ATI/Cyberlinks’s H.264 software installed. Again the latest build of WMP was used, the same also goes for the H.264 encoder.

dont have flash installed? then click here for a jpeg

 

Playback Performance Summary

The above results show that even for video playback having an AIW in your system will be beneficial in the future as the new high def DVD’s and video files become more widespread.