HD 2400 - MUCH better, especially it's x.264 performance

[VoOdoO]

I've never heard of the site before, so no idea how trustworthy the results are but ...

http://www.hardspell.com/english/doc/showcont.asp?news_id=622&pageid=644

Ignoring the bad translated English, that's killer performance in them there graphs, especially on a 2800+ Sempron. 5% CPU usage of a Sempron to play a 1080p x.264 video file. 20% for VC-1 (Serenity). I'm thinking HD 2600 for my next HTPC graphics card ::D:

That graph also goes to show just how bad the decoding with the UVD implementation missing for the HD 2900 series is. Ouch!

[chand]

Does this mean I could plug this into something like a Pentium 4 2.0 and not get dropped frames?

[VoOdoO]

Does this mean I could plug this into something like a Pentium 4 2.0 and not get dropped frames?

If those results are right, yes. UVD seems to take on pretty much all the decoding for x.264/VC-1 as well as (I assume) the more 'vintage' codecs like MPEG2 and the like. So yes, you could go out and buy an Xbox360 add-on drive, pair it to your P4 2.0 with HD 2400 system and have 1080p HD-DVD flawless playback. I'm waiting to see more results from other sites to confirm the above, and naturally we are trying to procure samples of 2400's and 2600's to test with ourselves.

[Brutton]

I think that's a moot point given the P4 doesn't have a PCI Express motherboard available.