Intel IGP Chipset Showdown - GeForce 9300 mGPU vs. Intel G45

Blu-ray Playback Performance

Blu-ray Playback Performance

Since we could only test the Blu-ray video playback in Windows Vista due to the fact that playback was not supported on Windows XP for the Intel DG45ID, that segment of the testing was done with a clean install of Windows Vista Ultimate with Service Pack 1. The Intel DG45ID was then updated with 15.11.3.1576 for the graphics driver. The ASUS P5N7A-VM remained on the same driver version, but using the Vista version. The Gigabyte board used nForce driver 15.24 for Vista and ForceWare 178.24.

CyberLink's PowerDVD 8 Ultra (2021 build) was used to test all the three motherboards. Hardware acceleration was enabled and two Blu-ray movies, Superman Returns (VC-1) and Black Snake Moan (H.264) were used as our test material. Vista's Performance Monitor utility was used to poll and record the average CPU utilization numbers when running the two Blu-ray movies.

Our results were heavily in favor of NVIDIA's GeForce 9300 mGPU, which produced very low CPU utilization numbers that matched our expectations of an IGP equipped with NVIDIA's latest PureVideo HD. Intel's G45 too did quite a decent job and playback was smooth on the DG45ID, unlike our experiences with older Intel GMAs. While it was once again a victory for NVIDIA, we have to say that Intel at least managed to fulfill its claims of Blu-ray decode hardware acceleration and one would usually not notice the higher CPU utilization. However, the fact that we were unable to playback Blu-ray movies in Windows XP could be a disadvantage for the Intel board.