8930G? One request, please.

Can anyone with a shiny new 8930G do one quick test and answer another question?

1. On this page:

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/inf/sb/CS-009266.htm?iid=business+search+chipset+identify

there is a utility to check the chipset. It should be "run as administrator" in Vista, otherwise it won't work.

I'm interested in finding out is the chipset in the new 8930G GM45 or PM45. On 8920G it seems to be GM965 despite the documents saying it should be PM965.

2. Also, how is the screen? Is there considerable backlight bleed, as it seems to be the case with 8920G. At least on two units I've seen, the light is somewhat uneven all around, and especially on the bottom edge the screen is noticeably lighter on dark scenes.

Thanks in advance!

- Tatu

P.S. Sorry for the not-so-informative subject line. I am only getting used to the new keyboard and pressed ENTER before finishing the line...

 

The two chipsets are identical, save for their graphics system.
You have a dedicated graphics card? Great, it's a PM965!
You don't? You have a GM965!

If it's an 8930 G, it's got a dedicated graphics card, and thus is a PM45 chipset.

 

TehSuigi,

Well, that's how I thought it would be, too.

But, in my 8920 G, at least, I have a dedicated card (Mobility Radeon HD 3650) with GM965, contrary to at least some documentation. The integrated graphics of the chipset is probably disabled by BIOS forever, but still I would be interested in how is the issue in 8930G. The reason: GM45 is (currently) the only chipset which should adhere to PAP (Protected Audio Path) specification. This might theoreticaly have some advantages.

So please, if there are any with a 8930G, can you run the beforementioned utility to check this out?

And also, how is the screen quality (uniformity of the backlight especially) in your 8930G?

Thanks!

- Tatu

 

Hmm. That is interesting. Why on earth would Acer use the GM965 chipset in a dedicated-graphics model, especially when there's no option to switch from dedicated to integrated like on the Alienware m15x.
There's still the possibility of a misidentification, so I'll run some tools on my 6920G and see if that's the case.

EDIT: Hang on a sec - where did you hear that the GM45 is the only chipset adhering to the PAP specification? I can't find it on Intel's website...

 

TehSuigi,

to tell you the truth, even the older chipsets might supposedly adhere to the spec, don't remember how have they turned out eventually. There seem to be troubles (mainly on the player software side) with even the GM45.

There are many threads at avsforum.com discussing the issue. Maybe the best way to find them is by searching posts by a user called "archibael". He's a very helpful guy working for Intel, honestly trying to help various parties to get this mess settled and finally, perhaps, enable us all to enjoy HD material as easily as it should be, you know, just plug & play, no praying and detective work needed. Mainly the problem has been getting multichannel LPCM (not down-sampled) moving over the HDMI (and eventually bitstreaming the hd-formats). Some poster said some time ago that they had truoble with audio even over DisplayPort, it seemed that they (Intel or Dell) had dropped implementing the audio side of it totally, which would be ridiculous, again..

But you better head to avsforum to check how is the status with these things atm, I haven't had time recently to follow the ever-moving scene

- Tatu