New Graphics card faster than a 9700 (1 Viewer)

[Scott L]

(grabbed from another board)

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S3/VIA Columbia (now Delta Chrome):

(from The Inquirer)

"The chip will be clocked at 300MHz+ for the graphics processor and 300MHz+ for memory, and will use plain DDR."

"S3 believes that the Columbia "will perform in the 20K+ range for 3DMark2001SE" and outscore even the Radeon 9700 Pro from ATI, and close to the NV30 from Nvidia."

"The cards will not use any kind of tile based rendering but will be optimised for "far more than hierarchical z". The firm calls it an Advanced Deferred Rendering feature and claims it will improve efficiency of the card. Advanced Deferred Rendering can do many things as well as front to back and back to front Z-culling."

"Delta Chrome retail boards should be available in Q2 starting from $90."

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VIA... I think I'll pass, but more competition means lesser prices and that's always a good thing.

 

[Scott DeToffol]

I read the quote and was like "so what" until I read the price point. $90!?! Wow, that would change the entire graphics industry if the claims are true.

 

[Camp]

S3 has NEVER made a capable 3D card. I have no reason to think they can start now...especially at such a low price point.

 

[NickSo]

Wow looks great for the features...

When it says it uses plain DDR ram, does that mean like itll take the regular ram you stick into your mobo? I doubt it.. but still, i think thats a good idea, making a video card thats ram upgradeable

 

[Joel Mack]

I think I still have my ViRGe 3D Deccelerator somewhere around here...

 

[Sean Eldridge]

I think I still have my ViRGe 3D Deccelerator somewhere around here...

That's good.

Sean

 

[MikeAlletto]

I doubt it. These guys haven't made a decent card in how long? Even though they keep trying. Its the PR hype machine running in overdrive. Meanwhile the hardware and software guys are sitting back in their offices saying to each other:

"The press release said what??!!!???"

 

[Masood Ali]

20,000 3DMarks? Did they specify a resolution?

That claim will come back and bite them in the ass when their card is released.

 

[Tekara]

well 3dmarks are kinda biased, a double in CPU power will double your 3dmarks, so you can run a really bad card with a super-computer and get the scores to be misleading. If your wondering a double in GPU seems to triple the 3dmarks.

those are very rough estimates but tend to hold true while your system remains somewhat without a major bottleneck.

 

[Brian Ruth]

I'll wait till I see concrete benchmarks on Toms Hardware... If Matrox can't get a good card out, I don't think S3 can.

 

[AaronMg]

Ugh, The Inquirer. They say a lot of stuff... :rolleyes

I take everything from that site with a grain of salt.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

As for the ram, the AGP slot is a little out of the way of the others, so maybe that would work. They could also mount the holders on the other side, which is pretty much free and clear of everything, or even make a holder with a 90 degree turn on it, so that the ram is parallel with the card.

As for anything else, I'm not saying a word.

Glenn

 

[Matt DeVillier]

you won't ever see a graphics card with upgradable memory again, for the simple reason that there's too much interference/noise/signal loss at the contacts when you have memory running at the speed it does nowadays. The signal timing between any processor and memory is very precise, and it doesn't take much to throw it off.