Radeon HD 3400 and 3600

They make noise, too.

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Aleksi
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Radeon HD 3400 and 3600

Post by Aleksi » Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:01 am

Greetings,

I've been looking around SPCR and the finnish computer forum Muropaketti for threads about the new Radeon 3400 and 3600 GFX cards. They seem to quite ideal for HTPC usage (should have HW support for decoding HD material AFAIU) and I've been wondering why there isn't a buzz about them. The 3450 cards seem to priced below 50€, probably a bit more for passive versions.

Any thoughts from the SPCR crowd about these cards?

I've been planning to get one of the 3400 series for my HTPC (Debian with MythTV) and I know that the Linux driver situation is not the best possible at the moment, but they seem to be OK even for future usage in a HTPC; HW HD decoding, sound with HDMI, some should even come with the Display Port connector and apparently OK power consumption figures.

Here's the link to the Anandtech piece

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3205

And here's the AMD press release.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/Virt ... 58,00.html

LaaG
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Post by LaaG » Mon Jan 28, 2008 11:10 am

These are the best for HTPC users right now. Nvidia alternatives (8600 / 8400) dont offer as many goodies. Low heat and power from the 55nm is also a plus point.

All the buzz is on the 3870 x2, no time for the low end :twisted: :twisted:

croddie
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Post by croddie » Mon Jan 28, 2008 12:40 pm

Should be reviews soon with power consumption measurements.

KenAF
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Post by KenAF » Tue Jan 29, 2008 6:23 am

croddie wrote:Should be reviews soon with power consumption measurements.
Here is one:

Power consumption of ATI 3650 vs Other Cards

loimlo
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Post by loimlo » Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:46 am

Get a 34x0 or 3650 with fanless heatsink design would be a superior multimedia card for silent HTPC. Plus, all 3rd generation carries Powerplay which reduces power draw without manual controlling at idle. Not to mention best-of-all UVD ... There comes a perfect HTPC card and recommends it for casual gamers.

I admit I am addicted to 3650, though a 7300GT owner temporarily. :lol:

plympton
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Kinda disappointing...

Post by plympton » Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:13 pm

I was looking at the numbers, and it looks like the 3450/3470/3650 are all equal to the 3850/3870 at idle. :-(. This is a bit of a bummer, in that there's really no benefit from a system power draw perspective to get the low-end card for an HTPC where it sits idle most of the time - the review of the 3450 passive I saw said it got really hot (even at idle - 50C!)

Check this page for power consumption:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/652/13/

And here for temps:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/652/11/

I'd worry with a 3450 at the moment in my Antec NSK2400 - I've just got the CPU, Side, and PS fans, all on low-speed, and with 2 500 GB drives, . Looks like it's idling at 25C for the CPU, 39C doing encoding, and up to 36C for the WD 500GB drive (they're always hot... :-()

Anyway, I'd worry that the passive 3450 would add too much heat to the mix... dunno Maybe a different heatsink and some Arctic Silver would help bring those temps down a tad.

-Dan

loimlo
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Post by loimlo » Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:17 am

50'c at idle from stock passive heatsink really does its job well from cost and heat performance perspectives, I believe. nVIDIA 8800GT's stock cooler would stay at 65'c at idle, how do you think about this?

Plus, just put or attach a fan beside it, you could improve temperature greatly by air flow. Case flow is key to fanless heatsink ... I don't think get a AC S1 or S2 for such a low-end card would be a economical idea.

Moogles
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Post by Moogles » Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:02 am

I'm very interested in the HD3450. Does anyone know what the least powerful CPU is that'll fully decode Blu-Ray/HD-DVD content (from hybrid LG optical drive) in combination with the 3450? I really don't need this HTPC to do any more than playback HD content. Would a E2200 be sufficient?

LaaG
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Post by LaaG » Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:38 am

Moogles wrote:I'm very interested in the HD3450. Does anyone know what the least powerful CPU is that'll fully decode Blu-Ray/HD-DVD content (from hybrid LG optical drive) in combination with the 3450? I really don't need this HTPC to do any more than playback HD content. Would a E2200 be sufficient?
http://sony.storagesupport.com/cgi-bin/ ... /view/1065

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/support/ ... &nCateId=5

The E2200 should do just fine.

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Re: Kinda disappointing...

Post by Vicotnik » Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:44 am

plympton wrote:I'd worry with a 3450 at the moment in my Antec NSK2400 - I've just got the CPU, Side, and PS fans, all on low-speed, and with 2 500 GB drives, . Looks like it's idling at 25C for the CPU, 39C doing encoding, and up to 36C for the WD 500GB drive (they're always hot... :-()

Anyway, I'd worry that the passive 3450 would add too much heat to the mix... dunno Maybe a different heatsink and some Arctic Silver would help bring those temps down a tad.

-Dan
The same amount of heat would add to the mix, no matter how effective the cooler on the GPU is. The only cooler that would change that is one that expels air out the back of the case.
I wouldn't worry about the temp on the GPU. 50C idle is not bad with a passive cooler.

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Post by thejamppa » Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:38 am

I really like HD 3450 512MB DDRII. For 49 €'s that could be good replicament for my aging X1600XT for multimedia thing. I really like 512MB version as it has Full Sized PCB instead 256MB which is low profile.

plympton
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Re: Kinda disappointing...

Post by plympton » Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:07 pm

Vicotnik wrote:
plympton wrote:I'd worry with a 3450 at the moment in my Antec NSK2400 - I've just got the CPU, Side, and PS fans, all on low-speed, and with 2 500 GB drives, . Looks like it's idling at 25C for the CPU, 39C doing encoding, and up to 36C for the WD 500GB drive (they're always hot... :-()

Anyway, I'd worry that the passive 3450 would add too much heat to the mix... dunno Maybe a different heatsink and some Arctic Silver would help bring those temps down a tad.

-Dan
The same amount of heat would add to the mix, no matter how effective the cooler on the GPU is. The only cooler that would change that is one that expels air out the back of the case.
I wouldn't worry about the temp on the GPU. 50C idle is not bad with a passive cooler.
Right.. didn't think about that. I suppose I should ask is how much heat is the 6150's embedded graphics putting out vs. the 3450's PCI-e graphics, and will the 6150's graphics (that's on the Northbridge, right?) cool down when a PCI-e card is installed.

It should be a little lower, but I'd expect that the NB is still pretty hot, right? nVidia doesn't make cool chips, unfortunately...

EDIT: I just did a bunch of searching, and didn't find an answer to my own question:

If you get a MB with on-board graphics, and then get a PCI-e card, do you pay a penalty (power-wise) vs. getting a MB with a PCI-e card and NO on-board graphics?

-Dan[/b]

Telamon
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Post by Telamon » Sat Feb 02, 2008 9:19 pm

Well for $50 a 3450 sounds like a good replacement to my aging onboard X200 chipset. We'll see how it goes.

robinhat
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Post by robinhat » Fri Feb 08, 2008 1:58 am

I am building a new system and for graphics I am considering either an ASUS HD 2400 PRO, 256 MB or a Sapphire RADEON HD 3450, 512 MB (the latter only being a little more expensive). My primary concern is heat generation.

Does anyone know how much more heat he 3450 generates than the 2400?

How much more powerful is the 3450 than the 2400 (and does the 3450 do MPEG2 decoding)?

I will not be gaming at all and only viewing a few DVD's, MPEG4-files and H.264-files on my small 15" monitor. I will also be encoding MPEG4 and H.264 files but I am not in a hurry when I do that :wink:

My processor will be a Core 2 Duo E8200.

djkest
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Post by djkest » Fri Feb 08, 2008 1:17 pm

Newegg now has a PASSIVE 3450 on sale...

LINK

plympton
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Finally got my 3450 working in my HTPC

Post by plympton » Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:09 am

There's a long thread about 3450's at AVSforum here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthre ... 278&page=5


I decided to bite the bullet and pick up a Sapphire 3450 for my HTPC, as my 6150 was giving me kernel panics randomly (heat? Undervolted CPU? Driver?) Well, I finally got around to dorking with my 3450, and here's what I found:

I couldn't get it to work in MCE 2005 - no way, no how. It worked great in SageTV under XP, but I wasn't ready to go to Sage just yet (maybe soon). After 2 years, this machine had so much cruft added to it, I figured maybe it was time for a fresh start. I kinda dreaded the idea of loading XP/MCE again, drivers.. and if it didn't work in the end... hmm..

So I bit the bullet, TrueImaged the XP machine, and installed.... V..is..ta. The install was actually pretty smooth, all the drivers eventually found themselves like magic, and it's actually a bit smoother than XP after I turned all the crap off. I still hate the Vista MCE main page, but, oh well, I'll live.

I wish there was a "make it look like MCE 2005" skin and I'd be really happy! :-)

Oh, and the 3450 performs quite well - no studdering or skipping, but I'm playing HD at 480i, so that shouldn't be much of a stretch. 1080i is noticably better than on my XP MCE machine - I'd get studders on Law & Order a lot with my embedded 6150, and drivers were always hit-or-miss on that thing. Everything had to be tweaked JUST right.

At idle I'm burning 102 watts - that's with the 3450, an undervolted Athlon64 x2 3800+, 2 500 GB HD's, 2 HDTV tuners, and 3 GB RAM. It's serving up Vista MCE and Slimserver. I bumped up my lower volts from .850 to .875 to help stability, and I think it's just about even with my embedded graphics, which is saying something, considering I also added another stick of ram!

Noise is a bit high, but that's because the 2nd drive is a WD 500AAKS - not the quietest seeker on the block. The other is a samsung 501 that's pretty quiet.

Temperatures are pretty decent, too. I've only got 4 fans in the system - Power Supply, exhaust, CPU, and a internal Panaflo to keep air moving on an NSK2400 case (Antec Fusion). All the fans are spinning at about 800-1000 RPM for noise, so there's not a lot of air moving. The CPU is idling at 31, the GPU at 50, motherboard at 36. Decoding they go up to 48, 60, and 40 respectively, so I'm pretty comfortable with that.

I'm going to tear it down and add some Artic Silver to the heatsinks, and maybe replace the Sapphire's heatsink (it's REALLY crappy - that's why I added that internal Panaflo)

-Dan

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Post by thejamppa » Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:09 am

I just asked my local retailer to order my Asus HD 3450 256mb DDR2. The heatsink looks nice with V-shaped like V8 or V10 engines ^^

djkest
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Post by djkest » Sun Feb 10, 2008 2:10 pm

I'm really interested in these. Newegg has some for sale, but no reviews so far and so ... yeah. Prices are good. 3650 I think would be great for an HTPC and it's only $80.

robinhat
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Post by robinhat » Sat Feb 16, 2008 9:12 am

Thanks for your informative post, plympton.

I think I will go for the 3450 - sounds like a nice card. How important is it if it is 256 or 512 MB?

plympton
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Post by plympton » Sun Feb 17, 2008 6:24 pm

robinhat wrote:Thanks for your informative post, plympton.

I think I will go for the 3450 - sounds like a nice card. How important is it if it is 256 or 512 MB?
Beats me... I've never had a card > 256 MB. For an HTPC, I'm sure 64 MB is overkill.

-Dan

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Post by fingers » Mon Mar 03, 2008 6:19 am

thejamppa wrote:I just asked my local retailer to order my Asus HD 3450 256mb DDR2. The heatsink looks nice with V-shaped like V8 or V10 engines ^^
Hello thejamppa,

Have you recieved this card yet? It looks very good! If you have does it come with a DVI -> HDMI adapter in the box? And does it work as expected?

Cheers

thejamppa
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Post by thejamppa » Mon Mar 03, 2008 7:24 am

fingers wrote:
thejamppa wrote:I just asked my local retailer to order my Asus HD 3450 256mb DDR2. The heatsink looks nice with V-shaped like V8 or V10 engines ^^
Hello thejamppa,

Have you recieved this card yet? It looks very good! If you have does it come with a DVI -> HDMI adapter in the box? And does it work as expected?

Cheers
Asus' were out of stock which is bummer. I got Sapphire's version with Hyper Memory instead. Great card but no HDMI adapter with Sapphire.

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Post by fingers » Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:13 am

thejamppa wrote:...

Asus' were out of stock which is bummer. I got Sapphire's version with Hyper Memory instead. Great card but no HDMI adapter with Sapphire.
Thanks for the info. The lack of a HDMI adapter is a bit of a downer, have to check about the Asus as I read that they aren't standard for all cards which could be a pain finding the right one!

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Post by thejamppa » Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:02 am

separate DVI -> HDMI adapter doesn't cost that much (Unless its Belkin's best), but it would still be nice to find in every multimedia card.

Aleksi
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Post by Aleksi » Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:55 am

Greetings,

I think I may end up going for the Sapphire HD3470, according to some shops the product code "11126-00-20R" should include a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. It should be passive and has a price tag of <60€.


Package Contents 7 Pin S-Video to HDTV Lead
DVI-I to VGA Converter
DVI-I to HDMI Converter
S-Video to Composite Converter


I'm guessing the 3450 would have been just as good, but I prefer to have 2 x DVI (something I haven't found in the 3450 cards). The 3650 seemed nice, but can't find a passive version of it (the Asus model is passive, but takes two slots).

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Post by tutu » Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:24 am

Club3D and Powercolor both make passive 3650s - both dual slot I think. HIS and ASUS also do but I think there most expensive (GDDR3).

Aleksi
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Post by Aleksi » Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:02 am

Small update to my post... The Sapphire does not in fact have the adapters included. I emailed two shops and got the surprising response of "the box states that the adapters are included, but in reality they are not included"

Jubei
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Post by Jubei » Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:26 pm

Newbie with video cards here . . . how does one get the temp of the GPU?? I'm using Sapphire ATI HD 3450.

I can't find the temp in Catalyst Control Center.

thejamppa
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Post by thejamppa » Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:09 pm

Temp can be found on CCC advanced version ( not the simple which is default ) and in OverDrive page.

xit2050
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Post by xit2050 » Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:03 am

You could also use Everest or GPU-Z to read the temps.

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