Thoughts and Conclusions

Performance

Our performance gauge for this article is not about higher frame rates for once, but rather about the lower CPU utilization that either side could provide.  At all default settings, and without the changed DLL files for Windows Media Player 10, the NVIDIA and ATI cards showed similar performance, with the edge going to ATI slightly.  However, after installing the new DLLs that NVIDIA promises will be in the next update to the WMP10 software, the NVIDIA 6-series cards show a dramatic improvement in lowering CPU utilization to show the same movies. 

The WMV optimizations were not enabled by default in the 4.12 drivers as ATI and Microsoft are working on a couple of issues, but a manual registry change turned them on.  ATI is also working on newer WMV9 and DivX HD enhancements in their driver to decrease CPU utilization and increase the load that the GPU takes on, but we’ll have to wait and see how much advantage the NVIDIA camp keeps with their video technology that is built onto their chips.

Image Quality

With the PureVideo technology’s settings set appropriately, NVIDIA’s image quality was at least equal to that of the ATI cards in terms of DVD and video playback.  The only issue that concerns me is that in a few of our tests, the best image quality did not come from the NVIDIA default settings in the decoder.  This means that a user would have to be able to set the de-interlacing mode to “smart” to get the best picture in T2 (and presumably other titles) and that just isn’t something that the consumer is going to do that is expecting a “consumer electronic” like experience.  ATI’s image quality at default settings seemed to be better able to detect the proper post-processing that was necessary, and because of that the “install and go” on the ATI card and driver was easier than the NVIDIA attempt.

Final Thoughts

NVIDIA’s PureVideo Technology is a great step forward in improved image quality and performance for everything from home movies to high definition video.  NVIDIA has taken the stance that it has commonly been assumed they have given up on – improving video image quality.  For the past several years, ATI’s video technology has been better than what NVIDIA provided, but it looks like the tables are going to finally turn.  NVIDIA is taking video seriously on the PC front, and the results are impressive.

I think you’ll see that with the increasing demand from buyers to get more value out of their products (in terms of use and features), more and more emphasis will be placed on video and consumer level entertainment on the PC.  This trend has been shown by gamers looking at graphics cards which were once only concerned with frame rates, but now frame rates and image quality; enthusiasts researching motherboards once only looked for speed, but now features are just as important to them.  Thus, the video features of both NVIDIA’s and ATI’s graphics cards are going to become more important to your buying decisions as the HTPC (home theater PCs) market begins to grow more popular, and users want to see HD DVDs and movies on their system at home. 

One issue that still hasn’t been completely resolved is the NV40 chip — does it have support for the new PureVideo technology?  Our understanding is that the answer is no, and it probably never will.  Users of the 6800GT and 6800 Ultra cards will get the same software benefits of PureVideo but the hardware benefits aren’t going to be possible.  Due to design changes that were made after the original core, the 6600 and 6200 cards do fully support the PureVideo technology.  Users who may already have a 6800GT or 6800 Ultra may be dissappointed that their video performance is going to be lower than that of the mid- and entry-level graphics cards.  These features also are not available on older NVIDIA cards: 6-series only.  If you want to see what features are available on what GPUs from NVIDIA, check out this link on their website: http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html 

In the end, PureVideo is a great technology from NVIDIA that is basically a free addition to a line of graphics cards that already had much of the enthusiast crowds’ attention.  While the DVD decoder isn’t a free upgrade, the driver is, and even without the decoder you can get the benefits of the improved video quality. Adding the DVD codec gives you the best possible DVD playback on your PC as well as support for the HD DVD formats, so it may well be a good investment to you.  PureVideo technology puts NVIDIA on par with, and in some cases ahead of, ATI’s video quality and performance. 

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