FAMICOMASTER wrote on 2021-06-09, 03:23:

I would go so far as to say any Core2 series CPU should be considered "Modern," as it's about the oldest platform which can still smoothly run Windows 10 with full support and will still also be adequate for most tasks like web browsing, email, document editing, movies, etc.
I would say anything incapable of the basic features average Joe wants would be considered old.

Definitely stretching it a bit with Core 2 stuff on Windows 10. The higher end Quads are fine, but Core 2 Duos choke hard on 10 because of all the crap trying to update in the background at the same time.

Maybe things have changed since I used it, but I had Windows 10 running on a Core2 Duo in some HP business box about 2 years ago. It was just a backup machine since the primary hard disk in my desktop at the time had just failed, but Core2 Duo + 4GB + Radeon HD 4550, it wasn't so bad to use for a while. Obviously it was not the fastest thing in the world but it was enough for me to do my daily tasks without issue.

I would go so far as to say any Core2 series CPU should be considered "Modern,"

Only Yorkfield core can be considered somewhat modern at this point. Everything else is just don't have enough horsepower or limited by lack of SSE4.

my newest PC is hardware from 2012, sandy bridge forever...

but looking at my PCs most of the GPUs are from the same era more or less as the platform

My main PC is a socket AM3 machine that I built back when it's motherboard and CPU were new.. probably 2010.
I moderately upgraded the video card a couple times, it now has a GTX285 in it.

Powering up can be frustrating because this system occasionally trips the PSU's overcurrent protection when it switches on, forcing the unplug/wait/retry ritual. I've tried multiple PSUs and other theories, I think it's a weird motherboard issue.
"Suspend to RAM" S3 standby has never worked with this motherboard, so if it's being used on an ongoing basis throughout the day, it pretty much is left running all the time.
The whole GTX2xx series of video cards has broken power management when multiple monitors are connected. They also run hot, needing manual override of the fan speed to help keep them at less ridiculous temperatures. Because these GPUs were intended for high powered gaming PCs, they didn't waste silicon on any useful degree of H.264 decoding support. Playing videos is CPU intensive, and just being turned on is GPU intensive because that's how GT200 rolls.
There is some issue that keeps me from being able to run TRIM on SSDs with this system. I run it with a Seagate SSHD instead.

It doesn't make any sense to use this as my main everyday PC. For a few years now I've been trying to retire it to only be used for occasional, late WinXP stuff.
But I keep going back to using it for everyday computing. And I'm back to that point again. I'm probably going to wear out the working life of this hardware using it to browse web sites, watch videos, and type spreadsheets.

A few months ago I added a dual boot of Linux Mint alongside the WinXP install. Linux gaming performance is awful with this video card, which makes it's usage in this machine even more of a waste.
Recently I got into playing a couple modern games, so now I'm looking at putting Windows 7 on it to get the performance back.

If I could afford it, I wish I could build a suitably updated machine for everyday applications and modern games. But I can't ever seem to reach that point.
I have one machine that almost fits the bill, but it's being used as an HTPC attached to a television. Not wanting to disrupt that, this 2010 build remains my next fastest system.
So I'm going to keep beating up a GTX285 to play new games that would be better suited to a GT1050 or somesuch, and keep heating my room to watch youtube videos.

shamino wrote on 2021-06-10, 03:55:

Because these GPUs were intended for high powered gaming PCs, they didn't waste silicon on any useful degree of H.264 decoding support. Playing videos is CPU intensive, and just being turned on is GPU intensive because that's how GT200 rolls.

Yah, the 200s had like the beta version of Nvidias decoder which used cores to process, then it got halfassed help in 400 series, then by 600 series it actually got reasonable.

I moderately upgraded the video card a couple times, it now has a GTX285 in it.

That's why I stick to GTX280, which can be software undervolted and is reasonably quiet after that.

I disable the hardware GPU decoder on the web browser anyway, I keep the rest of the acceleration turned on but the decode specifically forced off

on my HD4670 PC I had to turn a flag on to turn hardware acceleration on for the browser (edge chromium) because by default it disables it since it's too old it makes everything on the browser pretty slow without it, firefox still enables it by default, but as I said I force the hardware decode off because it's limited on cards like that (it can do 1080P30, but it can't handle 1080P60 while the CPU can just fine on that PC)

old Nvidia cards decoder is better, I think the geforce 9600GT and such can decode 1080P60, for AMD I think only GCN and newer can do it (and we are talking avc1/h264), at least my hd 5850 was just as bad as the HD4670 for 1080P60, and afaik the 6800s at least had the same limitation.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-06-10, 07:24:

I moderately upgraded the video card a couple times, it now has a GTX285 in it.

That's why I stick to GTX280, which can be software undervolted and is reasonably quiet after that.

I wish I had that model. Being able to software undervolt this card would be really nice.
The variants of these cards that I have are the GTX260, 275, and 285, which are basically different speeds of the same thing. I still need to try putting a copper shim into one of them and see if that helps them cool better. I noticed before that the heatsink on these cards has really bad clearance issues, not touching the GPU properly. It'll still be power hungry though, and not particularly good with modern games.

SPBHM wrote on 2021-06-10, 16:34:

I disable the hardware GPU decoder on the web browser anyway, I keep the rest of the acceleration turned on but the decode specifically forced off

on my HD4670 PC I had to turn a flag on to turn hardware acceleration on for the browser (edge chromium) because by default it disables it since it's too old it makes everything on the browser pretty slow without it, firefox still enables it by default, but as I said I force the hardware decode off because it's limited on cards like that (it can do 1080P30, but it can't handle 1080P60 while the CPU can just fine on that PC)

old Nvidia cards decoder is better, I think the geforce 9600GT and such can decode 1080P60, for AMD I think only GCN and newer can do it (and we are talking avc1/h264), at least my hd 5850 was just as bad as the HD4670 for 1080P60, and afaik the 6800s at least had the same limitation.

I used to use an HD2600XT in a Pentium 4 machine (no longer in service). To utilize it's H.264 decoding I needed to download videos and play them from a local file, but I prefer to do that anyway since web site players (especially youtube) tend to be annoying nowadays.
I had the same limitations with the 2600 - it could hardware decode 1080p30 no problem, but it choked if I tried to play 720p60 or above. So the HD4670 still has that same limitation? That's unfortunate, since it's the last AGP card available.

That system's replacement uses a GT240 and I've noticed that it does play 60fps. I don't remember if I tried 1080p60 or just 720p60 though.
The GT240 was the card Anandtech said "doesn't matter" because the GTS250 was faster. They missed the point of the card. There was a sharp dividing line in NVidia's lineup between the GT240 and GTS250. GTS250 and above were great for games but they were based on power hungry GPUs with no useful H.264 support. They were designed for home built gaming systems.
GT240 was the fastest card of that generation that was suitable for an HTPC or everyday usage, and which would likely play well with prebuilt systems like Dells/etc since it stayed within the standard 75W power budget. As such I think the GDDR5 model of the GT240 might have been the most interesting card of that generation, but they blew the chance to write an engaging article about it.

The variants of these cards that I have are the GTX260

GTX260 is cut-down version of GTX280 and also can be undervolted. You'll need to edit BIOS voltage values for 3D and low power 3D.

shamino wrote on 2021-06-10, 21:42:

I wish I had that model. Being able to software undervolt this card would be really nice. The variants of these cards that I ha […]
Show full quote

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-06-10, 07:24:

I moderately upgraded the video card a couple times, it now has a GTX285 in it.

That's why I stick to GTX280, which can be software undervolted and is reasonably quiet after that.

I wish I had that model. Being able to software undervolt this card would be really nice.
The variants of these cards that I have are the GTX260, 275, and 285, which are basically different speeds of the same thing. I still need to try putting a copper shim into one of them and see if that helps them cool better. I noticed before that the heatsink on these cards has really bad clearance issues, not touching the GPU properly. It'll still be power hungry though, and not particularly good with modern games.

SPBHM wrote on 2021-06-10, 16:34:

I disable the hardware GPU decoder on the web browser anyway, I keep the rest of the acceleration turned on but the decode specifically forced off

on my HD4670 PC I had to turn a flag on to turn hardware acceleration on for the browser (edge chromium) because by default it disables it since it's too old it makes everything on the browser pretty slow without it, firefox still enables it by default, but as I said I force the hardware decode off because it's limited on cards like that (it can do 1080P30, but it can't handle 1080P60 while the CPU can just fine on that PC)

old Nvidia cards decoder is better, I think the geforce 9600GT and such can decode 1080P60, for AMD I think only GCN and newer can do it (and we are talking avc1/h264), at least my hd 5850 was just as bad as the HD4670 for 1080P60, and afaik the 6800s at least had the same limitation.

I used to use an HD2600XT in a Pentium 4 machine (no longer in service). To utilize it's H.264 decoding I needed to download videos and play them from a local file, but I prefer to do that anyway since web site players (especially youtube) tend to be annoying nowadays.
I had the same limitations with the 2600 - it could hardware decode 1080p30 no problem, but it choked if I tried to play 720p60 or above. So the HD4670 still has that same limitation? That's unfortunate, since it's the last AGP card available.

That system's replacement uses a GT240 and I've noticed that it does play 60fps. I don't remember if I tried 1080p60 or just 720p60 though.
The GT240 was the card Anandtech said "doesn't matter" because the GTS250 was faster. They missed the point of the card. There was a sharp dividing line in NVidia's lineup between the GT240 and GTS250. GTS250 and above were great for games but they were based on power hungry GPUs with no useful H.264 support. They were designed for home built gaming systems.
GT240 was the fastest card of that generation that was suitable for an HTPC or everyday usage, and which would likely play well with prebuilt systems like Dells/etc since it stayed within the standard 75W power budget. As such I think the GDDR5 model of the GT240 might have been the most interesting card of that generation, but they blew the chance to write an engaging article about it.

from what I recall even the HD 6970 has this limitation ( can't do 1080P60) with the 7970 being the first ATI/AMD that could do it, my HD 5850 does the same, and so does the HD 4670,

I did a lot of testing years ago with the HD5850 and 1080P50 it could sort of do it, but 1080P60 it starts to freeze frames like the HD4670...

I think GPU decode is doing better these days on the web browser tbh, but still not as good as a dedicated software for sure,

I also have a 8400GS (second revision, g98 chip) from what I can notice it can kind of do 1080P60, it certainly doesn't freeze like the Radeons, but my 8400GS is PCI so I can hit that limitation making it no ideal for testing, a PCIE g98 8400GS I assume can do it.

oh the IGP on my sandy bridge (HD 2000) can also handle 1080P60 hw decode...

And this 3.2Ghz P4 just trundles on 24/7 without any complaints at all....

SPBHM wrote on 2021-06-10, 22:08:

from what I recall even the HD 6970 has this limitation ( can't do 1080P60) with the 7970 being the first ATI/AMD that could do […]
Show full quote

shamino wrote on 2021-06-10, 21:42:

I wish I had that model. Being able to software undervolt this card would be really nice. The variants of these cards that I ha […]
Show full quote

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-06-10, 07:24:

That's why I stick to GTX280, which can be software undervolted and is reasonably quiet after that.

I wish I had that model. Being able to software undervolt this card would be really nice.
The variants of these cards that I have are the GTX260, 275, and 285, which are basically different speeds of the same thing. I still need to try putting a copper shim into one of them and see if that helps them cool better. I noticed before that the heatsink on these cards has really bad clearance issues, not touching the GPU properly. It'll still be power hungry though, and not particularly good with modern games.

SPBHM wrote on 2021-06-10, 16:34:

I disable the hardware GPU decoder on the web browser anyway, I keep the rest of the acceleration turned on but the decode specifically forced off

on my HD4670 PC I had to turn a flag on to turn hardware acceleration on for the browser (edge chromium) because by default it disables it since it's too old it makes everything on the browser pretty slow without it, firefox still enables it by default, but as I said I force the hardware decode off because it's limited on cards like that (it can do 1080P30, but it can't handle 1080P60 while the CPU can just fine on that PC)

old Nvidia cards decoder is better, I think the geforce 9600GT and such can decode 1080P60, for AMD I think only GCN and newer can do it (and we are talking avc1/h264), at least my hd 5850 was just as bad as the HD4670 for 1080P60, and afaik the 6800s at least had the same limitation.

I used to use an HD2600XT in a Pentium 4 machine (no longer in service). To utilize it's H.264 decoding I needed to download videos and play them from a local file, but I prefer to do that anyway since web site players (especially youtube) tend to be annoying nowadays.
I had the same limitations with the 2600 - it could hardware decode 1080p30 no problem, but it choked if I tried to play 720p60 or above. So the HD4670 still has that same limitation? That's unfortunate, since it's the last AGP card available.

That system's replacement uses a GT240 and I've noticed that it does play 60fps. I don't remember if I tried 1080p60 or just 720p60 though.
The GT240 was the card Anandtech said "doesn't matter" because the GTS250 was faster. They missed the point of the card. There was a sharp dividing line in NVidia's lineup between the GT240 and GTS250. GTS250 and above were great for games but they were based on power hungry GPUs with no useful H.264 support. They were designed for home built gaming systems.
GT240 was the fastest card of that generation that was suitable for an HTPC or everyday usage, and which would likely play well with prebuilt systems like Dells/etc since it stayed within the standard 75W power budget. As such I think the GDDR5 model of the GT240 might have been the most interesting card of that generation, but they blew the chance to write an engaging article about it.

from what I recall even the HD 6970 has this limitation ( can't do 1080P60) with the 7970 being the first ATI/AMD that could do it, my HD 5850 does the same, and so does the HD 4670,

I did a lot of testing years ago with the HD5850 and 1080P50 it could sort of do it, but 1080P60 it starts to freeze frames like the HD4670...

I think GPU decode is doing better these days on the web browser tbh, but still not as good as a dedicated software for sure,

I also have a 8400GS (second revision, g98 chip) from what I can notice it can kind of do 1080P60, it certainly doesn't freeze like the Radeons, but my 8400GS is PCI so I can hit that limitation making it no ideal for testing, a PCIE g98 8400GS I assume can do it.

oh the IGP on my sandy bridge (HD 2000) can also handle 1080P60 hw decode...

Until recently I was using a Core 2 E8600 as a little web browsing machine in my workshop. That box had 8GB of DDR3-1333 and GMA X4500HD onboard, running the latest build of Win10. A few years ago, Chrome could totally offload 1080p/60 AVC to the integrated GPU, but not anymore. These days, Edge and Chrome both ignore the iGPU's hardware decode capabilities and just make the CPU do everything.

However, the E8600 can easily handle 1080p/60 AVC and VP9 without any difficulty, so it doesn't really matter. MPC-HC seems to be the only software that's still willing to use the X4500's hardware decoder.