XGI ... is anyone else intrigued?

airspirit · 09-26-2003, 10:08 AM

There is a new player in the graphics card market: XGI. They are a spinoff of SiS, and have purchased a couple of other research labs. They will be coming out with a new line of graphics cards in early November called "Volari".

What interests me are the specs on the highest end cards such as the Volari Duo V8 Ultra (mouthful). It is a SMP graphics card that assigns 256MB of DDR-II memory per core (and requires two 12V connectors!!!). Every other frame of rendering is done on every other core, meaning that each core has half the workload of other cards, and due to their SMP implementation they are currently only showing 30% loss over perfect 200% SMP core performance (very impressive).

Currently on pre-beta drivers and sample hardware they are pulling 5633 3DMarks03. I have a feeling, however, that due to the way the SMP performance is implemented (and not accurately measured in synthetic benchmarks) that the actual performance comparison to the Radeon 9800 Pro (its only real competition ATM) may put it well ahead, especially considering that their drivers are extremely immature at this point.

What are your guys' thoughts?

leejsmith · 09-26-2003, 10:43 AM

the home page is here

i guess some one will have one to test soon.

Lets hope they are up there with ati and nvidia at least we should benifit from greater choice and ultimatley lower prices.

TerraMex · 09-26-2003, 11:47 AM

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2003/comp...567%20copy.jpg

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2003/comp...lari%20duo.jpg

http://images.tweaktown.com/imageban...03_day1_08.jpg

http://www.tweaktown.com/popImgnews....x_xgibench.jpg

"The full range of graphics chips will become available in November in quantity through its growing add-in partners which currently include Power Color and Gigabyte. Right now XGI are still working on beta 2 silicon and perfecting their drivers for optimal performance and compatibility. Pricing is expected to match nVidia and ATi on all levels, ranging from $99 US to $499 US.

We were given the opportunity to run a stock standard 3DMark 2003 test with the Volari Duo, which is in the simplest terms, is a dual GPU Volari V8 Ultra linked by a 16GB/s bus with 256MB of DDR-2 memory (128MB dedicated to each GPU) which will most likely be very power hungry. Before you jump up and down like we almost did, XGI learnt off nVidia’s mistakes with the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra and designed the IC in a way which allows for add-in partners to either use a maximum of 512MB DDR or DDR-2 memory based on their memory clock speed requirements and supply of DDR-2 memory, which is still only in the early phases. With DDR memory, the memory core is designed to run around 375MHz (750MHz DDR) and with DDR-2 memory around 500MHz (1GHz DDR) with the GPU running at 350MHz.

Like we posted in the news today, the results were quite pleasing for such an early product. The Volari Duo scored 5,370 under 3DMark 2003 consistently which is a tad slower than GeForce FX 5900 Ultra and Radeon 9800 Pro – We were told that the high-end Volari V8 Ultra is scoring in the 3k range with the mainstream Volari V5 Ultra in the 2k range. As XGI drivers mature, we expect performance to increase to levels close to nVidia and ATI.

To finish off I wanted to mention an interesting comment from XGI about their dual GPU system. You may expect performance to be blisteringly fast but as XGI explained to us, it is cheaper to produce a dual GPU system since it becomes very expensive to produce such a complex GPU on the allocated die space which according to XGI will become common place among GPU makers soon as technologies continue to advance."

It's all from Computex 2003 presentations.

And while we're at it :

http://www.tweaktown.com/popImg.php?...day45_018l.jpg
That's one mean cooler.

-------
Back on topic:

Reminds me of the pared Voodoo 2 with SLI. Which a friend of mine had, it was "teh bomb".

Still, performance isn't measured by 3dmark, it's measured when you play something. So i'm going to wait for gaming benchmarks (hopefully with high vs low fps and averages) until i draw proper conclusions on the performance of the card. I like what i've seen so far, btw.

I also like the SMP configuration, i think it's a clever way of solving problems and circunventing the creation of a single chip to compete with nVidia or ATi. But i dont think the two giants will stay put, and probably try to get a dual GPU card ready next year.

Sapphire already tried :

http://www.hwupgrade.it/articoli/905/index.html

But it ran across alot of problems in the way. I think the project is on hold due to those problems, and to ATi saying "we're not interested in going that way ... yet".

But i'm happy with my 9700 , and dont intend to change it in the nearby future. Anyway... always good to see some new competition... gets things spicy, and prices down

.

cristoff · 09-26-2003, 12:05 PM

I think it'll be good to have an actual contender unlike some others *cough* matrox *cough*....

Anyways... there's another one too.... can't remember the name though... Something Chrome... S3's DeltaChrome... there we go....

Over at the Tech Report....

http://www.techreport.com/etc/2003q3...e/index.x?pg=1

... seems like we'll have some choice...

airspirit · 09-26-2003, 12:35 PM

I think they may have been using older drivers when that picture was taken. They ran it just a day or two ago at Computex and there are screenies of 5633 floating around the web. Like I said before, though, it will be interesting to see what happens in real life application rather than in synthetic benches. This may be a situation like with ATi and NVidia where they hit similar numbers in that particular crapmark but in real life the 9800 Pro trounces the 5900 Ultra in performance. I would not be surprised to find that this card can push an average of 30% faster than the 9800 Pro in real world applications at stock speed. If these things can be overclocked ... well, lets just leave it at that. Increasing the memory bandwidth further and pushing up those dually speeds ... hehe.

You have to admit, though, that those dually heatsinks with the LEDs are awfully nice looking. That is something you would definitely want a window for so you can see your hardware ....

Yo-DUH_87 · 09-26-2003, 12:43 PM

Hmm, would be nice for someone to step up and give nVidia and ATI a run for their money

They all have their diffrent perks and quirks: nVidia has good drivers (IMO), ATI has nice hardware (but the drivers and software leave much to be desired, IMO), and this new company looks like they have the hardware and overclockability, but the rest is an unknown quanity...

I actualy can't wait for some unbiased comparisons/overclocking articles if/when these cards make it to the market. Who knows, my next graphics card may not be either an ATI or nVidia

TerraMex · 09-26-2003, 01:02 PM

I'll take the non "bling bling" model . Unless those are some weird star trek type leds that actually help performance or temperatures.

SiS with XGI , S3 now .... too bad Matrox isn't going too well.
Or even 3Dlabs. The P10 chipset on the WildCats is great. Unfortunately Creative (who owns 3DLabs) sat on the thing. Even after a nice push from Carmack.

>I would not be surprised to find that this card can push an
>average of 30% faster than the 9800 Pro in real world
>applications at stock speed. If these things can be overclocked ...
>well, lets just leave it at that. Increasing the memory bandwidth
>further and pushing up those dually speeds ... hehe.

Overclocking dual setup is far from "easy". So , i dont think it will be that trivial. Unless XGI puts a nice software to do that (hint hint)... but then again , there's already a few articles to vmod the new k8 boards ...

iceheart · 09-26-2003, 02:34 PM

Let's all remember the old Quantum Obsidian cards as well

Joe · 09-26-2003, 04:22 PM

hehe sounds like 3dfx re-invented

TerraMex · 09-26-2003, 04:59 PM

Yes... but it's no 6000 ...

.

jaydee · 09-26-2003, 05:37 PM

What ever happened the the Kyro line of cards? Last one I remember Kyro 2 4500 64. http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1435

iroc409 · 09-28-2003, 05:55 PM

remember the rage max2 or whatever? had one of those, it was fairly sweet for the day. unfortunately it only worked in win98, so i sold it to my dad. i think he's still using it, somewhere.

ksw · 09-29-2003, 12:30 AM

XGI? never heard of... but ive seen XFI:

sevisehda · 09-29-2003, 05:13 AM

I'm wondering why they have 2 molex connectors? All the same I'd pick one up if the price was right. My only concernw ould be the lack of a community to develop mods.

09-26-2003, 10:08 AM	#1
airspirit Been /.'d... have you? Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Moscow, ID Posts: 1,986	XGI ... is anyone else intrigued? There is a new player in the graphics card market: XGI. They are a spinoff of SiS, and have purchased a couple of other research labs. They will be coming out with a new line of graphics cards in early November called "Volari". What interests me are the specs on the highest end cards such as the Volari Duo V8 Ultra (mouthful). It is a SMP graphics card that assigns 256MB of DDR-II memory per core (and requires two 12V connectors!!!). Every other frame of rendering is done on every other core, meaning that each core has half the workload of other cards, and due to their SMP implementation they are currently only showing 30% loss over perfect 200% SMP core performance (very impressive). Currently on pre-beta drivers and sample hardware they are pulling 5633 3DMarks03. I have a feeling, however, that due to the way the SMP performance is implemented (and not accurately measured in synthetic benchmarks) that the actual performance comparison to the Radeon 9800 Pro (its only real competition ATM) may put it well ahead, especially considering that their drivers are extremely immature at this point. What are your guys' thoughts? __________________ #!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied

09-26-2003, 10:43 AM	#2
leejsmith Cooling Savant Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: notts uk Posts: 408	the home page is here i guess some one will have one to test soon. Lets hope they are up there with ati and nvidia at least we should benifit from greater choice and ultimatley lower prices. __________________ Folding , Folding , Folding !

09-26-2003, 11:47 AM	#3
TerraMex Cooling Savant Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Portugal, Europe Posts: 870	piccies http://www.ocworkbench.com/2003/comp...567%20copy.jpg http://www.ocworkbench.com/2003/comp...lari%20duo.jpg http://images.tweaktown.com/imageban...03_day1_08.jpg http://www.tweaktown.com/popImgnews....x_xgibench.jpg "The full range of graphics chips will become available in November in quantity through its growing add-in partners which currently include Power Color and Gigabyte. Right now XGI are still working on beta 2 silicon and perfecting their drivers for optimal performance and compatibility. Pricing is expected to match nVidia and ATi on all levels, ranging from $99 US to $499 US. We were given the opportunity to run a stock standard 3DMark 2003 test with the Volari Duo, which is in the simplest terms, is a dual GPU Volari V8 Ultra linked by a 16GB/s bus with 256MB of DDR-2 memory (128MB dedicated to each GPU) which will most likely be very power hungry. Before you jump up and down like we almost did, XGI learnt off nVidia’s mistakes with the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra and designed the IC in a way which allows for add-in partners to either use a maximum of 512MB DDR or DDR-2 memory based on their memory clock speed requirements and supply of DDR-2 memory, which is still only in the early phases. With DDR memory, the memory core is designed to run around 375MHz (750MHz DDR) and with DDR-2 memory around 500MHz (1GHz DDR) with the GPU running at 350MHz. Like we posted in the news today, the results were quite pleasing for such an early product. The Volari Duo scored 5,370 under 3DMark 2003 consistently which is a tad slower than GeForce FX 5900 Ultra and Radeon 9800 Pro – We were told that the high-end Volari V8 Ultra is scoring in the 3k range with the mainstream Volari V5 Ultra in the 2k range. As XGI drivers mature, we expect performance to increase to levels close to nVidia and ATI. To finish off I wanted to mention an interesting comment from XGI about their dual GPU system. You may expect performance to be blisteringly fast but as XGI explained to us, it is cheaper to produce a dual GPU system since it becomes very expensive to produce such a complex GPU on the allocated die space which according to XGI will become common place among GPU makers soon as technologies continue to advance." It's all from Computex 2003 presentations. And while we're at it : http://www.tweaktown.com/popImg.php?...day45_018l.jpg That's one mean cooler. ------- Back on topic: Reminds me of the pared Voodoo 2 with SLI. Which a friend of mine had, it was "teh bomb". Still, performance isn't measured by 3dmark, it's measured when you play something. So i'm going to wait for gaming benchmarks (hopefully with high vs low fps and averages) until i draw proper conclusions on the performance of the card. I like what i've seen so far, btw. I also like the SMP configuration, i think it's a clever way of solving problems and circunventing the creation of a single chip to compete with nVidia or ATi. But i dont think the two giants will stay put, and probably try to get a dual GPU card ready next year. Sapphire already tried : http://www.hwupgrade.it/articoli/905/index.html But it ran across alot of problems in the way. I think the project is on hold due to those problems, and to ATi saying "we're not interested in going that way ... yet". But i'm happy with my 9700 , and dont intend to change it in the nearby future. Anyway... always good to see some new competition... gets things spicy, and prices down . __________________ "we need more cowbell."

09-26-2003, 12:05 PM	#4
cristoff Cooling Savant Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Mass Posts: 185	I think it'll be good to have an actual contender unlike some others cough matrox cough.... Anyways... there's another one too.... can't remember the name though... Something Chrome... S3's DeltaChrome... there we go.... Over at the Tech Report.... http://www.techreport.com/etc/2003q3...e/index.x?pg=1 ... seems like we'll have some choice... __________________ fr33t3chi3

09-26-2003, 12:35 PM	#5
airspirit Been /.'d... have you? Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Moscow, ID Posts: 1,986	I think they may have been using older drivers when that picture was taken. They ran it just a day or two ago at Computex and there are screenies of 5633 floating around the web. Like I said before, though, it will be interesting to see what happens in real life application rather than in synthetic benches. This may be a situation like with ATi and NVidia where they hit similar numbers in that particular crapmark but in real life the 9800 Pro trounces the 5900 Ultra in performance. I would not be surprised to find that this card can push an average of 30% faster than the 9800 Pro in real world applications at stock speed. If these things can be overclocked ... well, lets just leave it at that. Increasing the memory bandwidth further and pushing up those dually speeds ... hehe. You have to admit, though, that those dually heatsinks with the LEDs are awfully nice looking. That is something you would definitely want a window for so you can see your hardware .... __________________ #!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied

09-26-2003, 12:43 PM	#6
Yo-DUH_87 Cooling Savant Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Oregon, USA Posts: 230	Hmm, would be nice for someone to step up and give nVidia and ATI a run for their money They all have their diffrent perks and quirks: nVidia has good drivers (IMO), ATI has nice hardware (but the drivers and software leave much to be desired, IMO), and this new company looks like they have the hardware and overclockability, but the rest is an unknown quanity... I actualy can't wait for some unbiased comparisons/overclocking articles if/when these cards make it to the market. Who knows, my next graphics card may not be either an ATI or nVidia __________________ Signing out... Yo-DUH_87 If it works, fix it until it's broke! Then, after it's broke, add duct tape! Affordable webhosting!

09-26-2003, 01:02 PM	#7
TerraMex Cooling Savant Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Portugal, Europe Posts: 870	I'll take the non "bling bling" model . Unless those are some weird star trek type leds that actually help performance or temperatures. SiS with XGI , S3 now .... too bad Matrox isn't going too well. Or even 3Dlabs. The P10 chipset on the WildCats is great. Unfortunately Creative (who owns 3DLabs) sat on the thing. Even after a nice push from Carmack. >I would not be surprised to find that this card can push an >average of 30% faster than the 9800 Pro in real world >applications at stock speed. If these things can be overclocked ... >well, lets just leave it at that. Increasing the memory bandwidth >further and pushing up those dually speeds ... hehe. Overclocking dual setup is far from "easy". So , i dont think it will be that trivial. Unless XGI puts a nice software to do that (hint hint)... but then again , there's already a few articles to vmod the new k8 boards ... __________________ "we need more cowbell."

09-26-2003, 02:34 PM	#8
iceheart Cooling Savant Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Yonder Posts: 318	Let's all remember the old Quantum Obsidian cards as well __________________ "If the majority is smarter than you, does that make everyone else a geek, or does it make you retarded?" - pHaestus

09-26-2003, 04:22 PM	#9
Joe The Pro/Life Support System Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Denver, CO Posts: 4,041	hehe sounds like 3dfx re-invented __________________ Joe - I only take this hat off for one thing... ProCooling archive curator and dusty skeleton.

09-26-2003, 04:59 PM	#10
TerraMex Cooling Savant Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Portugal, Europe Posts: 870	Yes... but it's no 6000 ... . __________________ "we need more cowbell."

09-26-2003, 05:37 PM	#11
jaydee Put up or Shut Up Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Spokane WA Posts: 6,506	What ever happened the the Kyro line of cards? Last one I remember Kyro 2 4500 64. http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1435

09-28-2003, 05:55 PM	#12
iroc409 Cooling Savant Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: midwest side, yo Posts: 596	remember the rage max2 or whatever? had one of those, it was fairly sweet for the day. unfortunately it only worked in win98, so i sold it to my dad. i think he's still using it, somewhere. __________________ :shrug:

09-29-2003, 12:30 AM	#13
ksw Cooling Savant Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: SWEDEN(cold...) Posts: 195	XGI? never heard of... but ive seen XFI: __________________ www.webraced.com <- addicted as hell /me is!

09-29-2003, 05:13 AM	#14
sevisehda Cooling Savant Join Date: May 2003 Location: NY Posts: 234	I'm wondering why they have 2 molex connectors? All the same I'd pick one up if the price was right. My only concernw ould be the lack of a community to develop mods. __________________ CPU: Barton2500 @ 2.43 ghz MB: NF7S Rev2 RAM: 2x 256mb Kingston HyperX 3500 HD's: 2x 160gb SATA RAID GPU: Sapphire X800Pro VIVO -> XT Plat(softmod) 520/590

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