View Full Version : New graphic cards from XGI: Volari
http://www.xgitech.com/
Bye!
RussSchultz
15-Sep-2003, 14:35
Sounds exciting.
No really.
Especially the "Intelli-vision" part. I miss my old intellivision. Navel Wars was the greatest.
Seriously, though. It looks good on paper. Must see in action to beleive.
chavvdarrr
15-Sep-2003, 14:39
well, it looks like soon we'll be able to use "referent dx9 image" ... :), i.e. right now having only 2 parts its impossible to say with 100% which is "right" and "wrong" .... the funny thing is SiS made it! Not S3, not PowerVR, not Motrox or Crative .......
I wish them luck
Funny "chemical" trend on drivers' name: Detonator, Catalyst and now Reactor! :)
Bye!
Great to hear of more competitive technologies (at least on paper)
which covers the top end through to low end - good news for consumers
*Volari Duo V8-
dual chip...350mhz core... 500mhz 128 bit ddr2... 16 pipelines...4 vertex .. 8 pixel shaders.... up to 512mb vdram
is beyond3d likely to get one of these samples soon???
half life 2 performance estimates anyone???
could xgi take the surprise performance lead from ati till the big two r420/nv40 releases??
if xgi can do it, could pvr series 5 do it too??
Volari Duo sure looks like a real powerhouse
It looks nice on paper, but they don't mention any bandwith saving tehniques and that could be lethal. Remember Parhelia?
Also imagine the price of Dual chip, 512 MB DDRII (@500 MHz) solution and it's power requirements.
They just state 4 vertex and 8 pixel shader blocks, but that doesn't say much. Remember nVidia and their array of shaders?
It's nice that competition is beginig to build up, but for now all is on paper. We should at least wait for Computex to see if they have working silicon. If they have they could expand their market share, but if they don't they could be late to market.
5.6 Gpixel/s sounds mighty impressive, but remember that products from SiS didn't quite reach their theoretical maximum in any case and I believe that most of SiS graphics engeneers worked od XGI's cores.
Just my 2 cents. :)
Zvekan
It looks nice on paper, but they don't mention any bandwith saving tehniques and that could be lethal. Remember Parhelia?
Maybe that BroadBahn(TM) memory architecture provide some kind of compression/bandwidth saving...
Bye!
Sounds exciting.
No really.
Especially the "Intelli-vision" part. I miss my old intellivision. Navel Wars was the greatest.
My favorite was Micro Surgeon :D
parhelia
15-Sep-2003, 20:31
It looks nice on paper
Remember all the guys who were saying "come on, XGI can never make a high end card, only ATI and NV can" (on [H])? Well, I guess they must be in a shock now. XGI might have more tricks up their sleeves.
but they don't mention any bandwith saving tehniques and that could be lethal.
BroadBahn.
It has color compression according to what I read somewhere.
Also imagine it's power requirements.
It can't be worse than a GeforceFX, can it?
3dfx managed to come out with dual chip cards as well without requiring anything spectacular.
They just state 4 vertex and 8 pixel shader blocks, but that doesn't say much. Remember nVidia and their array of shaders?
nVidia GeforceFX has only one pixel and vertex shader block according to Tom's Hardware
It's nice that competition is beginig to build up, but for now all is on paper.
Exactly, I agree with you here, but it does look like a good start IMO.
digitalwanderer
15-Sep-2003, 20:38
I was gonna say, I'm very excited by the news...but I didn't see any availability dates or even estimates.
I've gotten a wee bit leary of paper launches lately, no matter how promising they look. ;)
parhelia
15-Sep-2003, 20:44
they're going to display it at Computex, or so I heard
Joe DeFuria
15-Sep-2003, 20:51
they're going to display it at Computex, or so I heard
Dsiplay what at computex? actual products running games, including the dual core products? Or display the V3 product, plus spec sheets of the V5/V8 and duo cards?
digitalwanderer
15-Sep-2003, 21:05
they're going to display it at Computex, or so I heard
If they could do that, this would be VERY exciting news to me just because I think they couldn't be a better opening time for a new graphics card maker to hit the scene.
The big question: Can it run Half-life2 well on the pure DX9 path?
If it can do that, they'll be able to sell some. :)
parhelia
15-Sep-2003, 22:56
seeing how they stress on the V8 Duo (ads, and all) and judging from what they say, my guess is that the V8 Duo will come out soon.
Also, Digitalwanderer, remember what you were told?
Here's a quote for the others who missed it:
As for the incorrect information going around, it says that we will
launch XG40, XG41 and XG42 in September, that is incorrect, we will be
launching XG40 + 2 others ... But not XG41 nor XG42, those two will be
launched later this year.... That's right..... No more holidays for me
before year end!~
XG40 is the Volari V8, XG41 is Volari V5 and XG42 is Volari V3.
They say XG41 and XG42 will be launched later this year, so we won't see them so soon.
But look at what he said would be launched this month, in September : he said "we will be launching XG40 + 2 others". What are the 2 others? There's the Volari V8 Ultra and... the Volari V8 Duo! That's the reason why the "2 others" didn't have any codename, they're different products based on the same GPU!
Add to that the fact they will be displaying something at Computex, and my best guess is that they could display the V8 Duo at Computex.
parhelia:
You have misunderstood me. It'm really looking forward to competition and Volari graphics cards, but it's too early to say anything rational as we yet don't know when should cards appear or market.
After Computex everything should be more clearer. If they present working silicons they have a strong chance of winning some market share, but if they stay on presentation slides?
Also the stronges model doesn't look that spectacular because of it's price and most definately problematic production. Remember V5? It was a very good card for users, but not so good for 3dfx (as it costed too much).
In what process are Volari chips produced? 0,13 micron? And what are their transistor count?
Zvekan
parhelia
16-Sep-2003, 09:42
they say on their site it uses 0.13 micron
no mention on the transistor count though
digitalwanderer
16-Sep-2003, 13:36
Ok, I'm all excited now!
I got an e-mail from Chris Lin this morning from XGI and he gave me some performance info and availability info, I posted it up over at
Elite Bastards in this thread (http://www.elitebastards.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2036).
Heathen
16-Sep-2003, 17:38
The V8 Duo looks like a good excuse to build myself a second system.
ZoinKs!
16-Sep-2003, 23:19
These cards could work out... depending on price, availability, image quality, drivers, and whether those 3dmark03 scores are using cheats.
They need to get a bunch of things right, but they have a chance.
digitalwanderer
17-Sep-2003, 00:07
These cards could work out... depending on price, availability, image quality, drivers, and whether those 3dmark03 scores are using cheats.
Price will be competative with the similar price-points at ATi/nVidia, it will debut at computex, no clue on image quality, ditto drivers, and ditto cheats. :)
ZoinKs!
17-Sep-2003, 09:13
Who are XGI exactly? It's a mix of Trident and Sis. They made the Xabre when still a part of sis. They recently spun off into a separate entitiy.
Although it's a "new" company, they've got experienced people... I hope this turns out better than the Xabre.
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