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The graphics core got the updated architecture of the GeForce 7 series. But it has as many pipelines as GeForce 6150 (one vertex and two pixel pipes), and its frequency matches that of GeForce 6100 (425 MHz). GeForce 7050 offers built-in support for two video-outs (analog and digital). It's digital video output can be used with DVI or HDMI, HDCP encoding is supported. The chip also has an integrated TV-out. The analog output is based on the 300 MHz RAMDAC, so this solution supports resolutions up to 1920x1440 (75 Hz), Single-Link DVI supports up to 1600x1200. What concerns GeForce 7025, it can only boast of the second video output (DVI). PureVideo is supported only by GeForce 7050 (hardware acceleration of H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2 video playback, post processing of SD and HD video (1080p), including deinterlacing, color temperature correction, and smart scaling of low-res video for comfortable playback on a HD screen). Both models support a full-size graphics port PCI Express x16. The number of USB ports is increased. The chipset supports HD Audio only (AC'97 is not supported). But this time there is no famous MAC adapter with a hardware firewall and other proprietary features from NVIDIA. The integrated network functionality is now available only in discrete chipsets from NVIDIA. It's not improbable that it will survive only in the most expensive modifications. Of course, this option allowed NVIDIA to attract more attention to its products. Besides, it was an interesting solution. But the choice of network adapters for PCI Express designed for motherboard integration is wide these days. A hardware firewall can also be added to a motherboard. So it's not at all necessary to integrate such functionality into a chipset. Most users will hardly notice benefits of unpacking network traffic on the hardware level (if it can be registered subjectively at all, without low-level tests), while the reduction of heat release is always welcome (network adapters heat NVIDIA chipsets noticeably, you can see it in tests with active network traffic). As we can see, NVIDIA has come close in its chipsets to what we can see in AMD 690G, so the main comparison awaits us in performance tests. Designation of the top model looks funny, NVIDIA people like letter indices so much that they couldn't decide this time what name to use - PV (that's how the chipset is named in specifications) or SE (on the chip and in the driver). In our opinion, a single model in a family with this numeric index might have done well without letters. Performance testsTestbed configuration:
Software:
Test resultsWe analyze performance with a discrete graphics card only to make sure that there are no problems with BIOS settings in motherboards.
There is nothing much to comment on. Performance is just as it must be for our configuration. When the integrated graphics core is used, performance drops only nominally. We speak about computing tests that don't use 3D acceleration, of course (nevertheless, video output loads a memory controller). It's a nice tradition. XviD revealed some difference between the chipsets in the integrated graphics mode. But here we should speak of differences in memory timings. We proceed to game tests with integrated graphics. We also ran our tests with MSI GeForce 7300 LE (~$50), a budget solution in the GeForce 7 family. As is well known, DOOM 3 favors the graphics architecture designed by NVIDIA - the GeForce 7050 outperforms the AMD 690G even in the high quality mode. We can see well that despite the reduced frequency, the new chip demonstrates a noticeable advantage over the GeForce 6150. And the GeForce 7300 LE has finally found weaker competitors. All NVIDIA solutions slump in FarCry as resolution and graphics quality grow. The 7th generation is no better than the 6th family.
The GeForce 7050 fares better than the GeForce 6150 in Unreal Tournament 2004 in all modes. On the face of it, our conclusion on game results seems evident. NVIDIA really managed to raise the performance bar for integrated graphics on the AMD platform. But judging by test results in DOOM 3 and FarCry, it's still far from the level of even primitive stand-alone accelerators, such as GeForce 7300 LE. But it's a shallow conclusion. The fact is, $50 for a discrete graphics card is a noticeable addition to the price of a motherboard on these chipsets ($80-100). Is it really necessary, if it can "help" you only in DOOM III (among our test games) and probably in some other dynamic games of the last but one generation? To my certain knowledge, if you want to play high-tech dynamic games, you'll need a graphics card for at least $100-$150 (and you'll still have to go to serious compromises in settings). And integrated graphics will suffice in games that do not require much GPU resources (both old and modern ones). Fortunately, solutions from AMD and NVIDIA render 3D environments correctly and offer sterling support for DirectX 9.0. What concerns the direct comparison of integrated chipsets, the GeForce 7050 should be considered the most "playable" solution, if we speak of dynamic arcades that require 30-40 fps. We may even reduce resolution and graphics settings in order to increase the framerate in such games. AMD 690G will offer similar or even better support for quiet games in high resolutions (quests, RTS, etc), which also use DirectX 9.0 functions. Video decoding tests had a surprise in store for us - the GeForce 7050 and GeForce 6150 SE (6100) demonstrated similar results, to within a measurement error, differences in driver versions, etc. Perhaps, that's the effect of their identical frequencies. So we decided to run additional tests with enabled Cool'n'Quiet, in order to evaluate the driver in modes with a partially loaded CPU. We also used the above-mentioned MSI GeForce 7300 LE in our tests. One more series of tests was run with disabled hardware acceleration (we just removed the video driver). Decoding MPEG2 of the standard quality is not a difficult task even for a CPU without hardware support from the chipset, at least if you don't watch a movie and run another background task. If you do, hardware support in both chipsets will cope with the task just as well as a graphics card. And the CPU load will be reduced to several percents. When we enabled Cool'n'Quiet in this test, the frequency dropped to minimum (1 GHz, x5 multiplier), and the load grew strictly proportionally.
We used a CyberLink decoder in this test with MPEG2 video of high resolution (1080i). It's our standard video fragment, we've had no problems with it before. But this time the GeForce 7050 played it with some jerking, despite the minimal CPU load. When we switched to VLC (an omnivorous player notable for much better optimizations), it smoothed the playback over a little. But we decided to write this problem off to buggy NVIDIA drivers and skip this test in our analysis.
In return, we added a video fragment in MPEG4 (DivX) format with a low bitrate (0.72 MB/s). But its much higher compression provides a heavier load. However, the difference turned out to be small from the point of view of software decoding. And hardware decoders have noticeably worse optimizations for this format. Pay attention to the result of AMD 690G - it outperformed much even an external graphics card.
WMV records, at least those encoded with the Microsoft codec, are a real fount of illustrative examples for hardware-assisted decoders. We don't know whether it's a peculiarity of this format or the player is not optimized well enough. But this is the only format, which is too tough for our processor. Its playback would freeze from time to time in both cases. The following graph explains this phenomenon for decoding a 720p video fragment (the 50% load is far from critical).  Indeed, the load is not distributed evenly between the cores. What concerns the ranks of our chipsets, AMD 690G leads again. But this time the gap is minimal. By the way, Cool'n'Quiet increased the average CPU load only a little in this and other tests, which decoded "heavy" recordings. The driver is indeed responsive to the increasing load and raises frequency in time. There are no side effects or skipped frames in the power saving mode.
The next file is a 1080p video fragment in H.264 format. It's a heavy format indeed. VLC copes with this task in software mode only owing to its excellent optimization and even distribution of the load between CPU cores.
 What concerns hardware-assisted modes, we can note a relatively low result of AMD 690G, which does not agree well with other test results. However, solution to this very problem has been already found. We only have to wait for proper BIOS updates from motherboard manufacturers. To all appearances, performance drops here because of non-optimal settings, which cause memory latencies (when a chipset accesses a memory controller in a processor). As a result, the powerful graphics core remains idle. Other tests probably took advantage of the computing capacity of the graphics core. Drawing a bottom line under performance tests, we can note that the graphics cores in these chipsets are powerful enough to cope with decoding even heavy formats. There is practically no need in buying a graphics card for this purpose (you'd better invest in your processor, to free a computer for other tasks even when it decodes video in a "heavy" format). Moreover, the difference between integrated solutions and an entry-level graphics card in video decoding tests was noticeably smaller than in games. The integrated graphics core from AMD turned out even stronger in several tests than a graphics card. Peripheral interfacesWhen GeForce 7050 was launched, there were some rumors that USB support in this chipset was inferior to the modern standards, that its maximum read rate was limited. It's a good occasion to add tests of peripheral interfaces to our chipset test procedure. You can read about our test procedure here. However, these tests did not make a big stir. Even if the USB implementation in the GeForce 7050 is worse than its competitor, the difference is within several percents. We like the modern revision of SB600 south bridge in the AMD 690G chipset. As we already wrote, the read rate from an MMC card demonstrated in this test corresponds to the maximum level among all previously reviewed chipsets. Now let's have a look at theoretically possible SATA and PATA transfer rates. There is nothing to comment on here. Both interfaces offer redundant bandwidth with the existing devices. SATA devices may require higher bandwidths in future (but the standard will mostly likely be updated by this time), while new PATA hard drives are already extremely rare. ConclusionsOn the whole, the new chipset from NVIDIA produced a nice impression on us. Along with decent functionality and performance, we can mention its low heat release, just like in AMD 690G. Biostar engineers equipped the motherboard on GeForce 7050 with a larger heatsink than the model on AMD 690G. But we should keep in mind that the NVIDIA chipset consists of only one chip. So if we compare the total heat dissipation, they will most likely be on a par. We come to the same conclusion, when we compare the chipsets by other criteria. Its higher total performance score in games is "compensated" by the defeat in video decoding tests. And what concerns functionality, differences between GeForce 7050 and AMD 690G are minimized, as if deliberately. Perhaps, it's convenient from a consumer's point of view. But it will hardly help NVIDIA promote the chipset. Motherboard design requires certain resources. And when it's ready, similar products from the same manufacturer start competing with each other. So the total number of sold motherboards (the most interesting parameter for a company) will not grow much. So why launch a motherboard on GeForce 7050 at all, if a similar product on the older AMD 690G chipset is already available? Of course, manufacturers interested in providing a wide range of products for end users, like Biostar, will produce motherboards on both chipsets (in several bundles) specially for serious-minded readers, who seek solutions strictly for their tasks. And NVIDIA will have to find weightier arguments for the mass market. However, the AMD64 platform has one advantage - it does not have a direct relation between CPU generations and chipsets. As a result, we can see the best chipsets of the previous generations used in modern motherboards. So, even if the main manufacturers don't launch motherboards on GeForce 7050 at once, this chipset may be used by many motherboards in future as the platform is updated. We should also say a few words about GeForce 7025 and AMD 690V, which are almost identical in functionality. There is only a small difference - the NVIDIA chipset has the second graphics slot and supports DVI, while the AMD chipset preserves hardware-assisted decoding of HD Video and an integrated TV-Out. So they supplement rather than compete with each other. Dmitry Laptev (lpt@ixbt.com)
July 13, 2007
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