
Here's the bottom line: the 785G is a welcome update to a highly-regarded IGP, but with no more raw power than the 780G it will replace. The 785G is essentially the 780G chipset re-introduced with a number of attractive features, and it looks even better beside AMD's value-oriented Phenom II and Athlon II processors.
Is the 785G the best IGP out there? The answer is going to depend on what the PC will be used for and whether the apps you want to run work better with a Phenom II or Core 2 processor. With this in mind, let's examine a few of the primary reasons someone would want an integrated chipset, and specific recommendations for those applications.
Home Theater PC:
Which IGP is the best in a home theater PC? At this point I would have to say Nvidia's GeForce 9300/9400 and the 785G are running a close race, with the G45 slightly behind both due to a lack of picture-in-picture acceleration and a lower video playback quality (we'll explore this HTPC Blu-ray playback on these IGPs in a dedicated article in the very near future). Despite the update that 785G does not, in fact, feature eight-channel LPCM audio output, this remains a feature limited to a certain class of HTPC enthusiasts who run more complex speaker setups.
If money is a factor and eight-channel LPCM isn't necessary, then the 780G is the way to go at prices far below the GeForce 9300/9400.
Low-Cost Gaming PC:
For this specific use, I'd recommend skipping IGPs altogether and opting for a non-IGP motherboard of your choice in addition to a discrete graphics card. The Radeon HD 4350 is far more powerful than all of these IGPs, and can be found for under $35 online, while $50 gets you into Radeon HD 4650 territory and true 1280x1024 gaming. If you really don't have the $35 to spend, I'd recommend the 780G with a solid overclock to the graphics chipset. If you can't afford a discrete card today but plan on multiple cards in the future, the 790GX is the way to go with its dual-card CrossFireX capability.
All-Purpose PC
As a general, all-purpose PC for the home, I'd recommend the 780G or 785G, and not because of the chipset so much as the low cost of solid CPUs that drop into them. The Phenom II X2 and Phenom II X3 really do offer a great deal of performance for the price right now.
While Intel does offer its own low-priced Core 2 and Pentium dual-core gems, the G45 trades off too much in the graphics power department to be attractive, and the GeForce 9300/9400 motherboards are inexplicably expensive. The cheapest 780G motherboard is $45 less than the cheapest 9300 motherboard we can find, which is almost the cost of a discrete Radeon HD 4650.
In the final analysis, the 785G is a fine addition to AMD's chipset portfolio, and is perhaps most compelling for home-theater enthusiasts.
- Introduction
- 785G Northbridge And SB710 Southbridge Vital Statistics
- Features For The Home-Theater Crowd
- Radeon HD 4200 Enhancements
- Other 785G Goodies
- Hardware Choices, Setup, And Overclocking
- Test System And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: Synthetics
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Benchmark Results: 3D Rendering And Productivity
- Game Benchmarks: First-Person Shooters
- Game Benchmarks: Flight Sim And RTS
- HD Video Playback Benchmarks
- GPGPU Benchmark
- Power Usage Benchmark
- Conclusion

A integrated GPU that can game. =D
Makes my lil Pentium D with a 4670 seem puny...
3.3GB/s memory bandwidth (single channel DDR2 533... though 2 sticks, it runs in single channel... damn prebuilts) also seems sad on my rig...
Good question. A dual core Atom with a 4200 integrated would be nice.
We all know Intel makes shitty mothebroards and AMD makes kickass motherboards anyways.
Not correct, the P2 has a built in memory controller so the switch to ddr3 affected that controller
Native ram for a pentium d is PC4200 which has a max of 4.2gb/s per channel etc and the FSB has the max of 6.4gb/s
The Intel atom would most likely underpower any video card out there, and Intel does actually make a good reliable business platform where video performance is not required etc
Perhaps the next task could be a power comparison to tell us how long a computer needs to stand in active state to consume more power than turning it off and back on again (including starting msn,av software and a bunch of other stuff running in the background).
Anyway good article
PS: Phenom II does support DDR3, there are only 2 models out of 12 that don't...
========
My take on it is except for some specific HTPC features, the 790GX is still the better of the two, especially if any gaming is involved. They compared an OC'ed 785G to a stock 790GX; what if they'd OC'ed the 790GX also?
And, lest anyone develop any false hope, the Intel IGP has once again been shown to be a toad.
Let's seee... Decent performance, able to play HD videos, low cost. That covers everything I need for a HTPC!
We concentrated on the new aspects of the 785G in this article; hybrid crossfire is exactly the same as it was with the 780G, that is to say it maxes out with a 3450 card.
Nope, it's using a 24 W difference. I think that's why your numbers are different too. I get:
24 Watts * 24 hours = 576 WHrs / 1000 W/KW = .576 KWHrs * $0.15 cents/KWHr * 365 days = $31.54
Good article otherwise, thanks.
That is incorrect, if that was the case, the Phenom II wouldn't benchmark so much better and it wouldn't overclock so much better. Just because it has the Phenom name to it, doesn't mean all they did was give it a bit more L3 Cache and call it a day. You could've given the original Phenom more L3 cache all day long and it wouldn't still ran like poop. Not necessarily poop, but just not as well as the Phenom II.
If this is true, then why does the Hybrid crossfire graphic on the first page show HD4350, HD4550 and HD4650 as compatible hybrid crossfire GPUs?
It makes sense.. the 780G used an integrated 3200-series GPU, so it was compatible with lower-end dedicated 3000-series GPUs. The 785G uses an integrated 4200-series GPU, so it should be compatible with the lower-end dedicated 4000-series GPUs.
Can you clear this up? I was also wondering what GPU's can be used as Hybrid crossfire with the 785G. I thought I knew from that graphic on page 1, but your response confused me.
Thanks
Thanks for clearing it out, Cleeve! There is not much sense using Hybrid CF then. However, my original question still remains: how much extra wattage may one expect with mid-range 4600 or 4700 card added for example? Does disabling the device help here a bit more when not in use? Hope this is not too off-topic already...