XGI launches the Volari 8300

Now you`re a meanie saying that:)) The article is mostly crap, but if it has nice video-quality as they imply, and if it`s fairly cheap, it could fare OK, IMO. Even they are saying that this is not a gaming card-it`s a fanless design after all.
 
it seems on par with X300SE - as features, speed in 3dmark... and IF the quality is really so much better as shown on those 2 screenshots.... I bet such cards can be sold for 40-60$
 
I'm confused... they list the X300 (SE) as 325/200 clock speeds. I assume the 200 is a typo, and it should be 300, but regardless since it's the 128MB model I'm guessing that it is a HyperMemory card, isn't it? In which case only 32MB is on board, and the rest is system memory, which suprisingly is running slightly faster (333MHz) than the Volari's on-board memory (300MHz). At least, it sounds like Volari's memory is all on board, but I only see 2 memory chips in the pictures of the card they provided, which doesn't seem right.

Still, most systems (and pretty much any system with a Volari in it) will not have DDRII 667 memory in it, so I'm not quite sure why they chose that system for comparison. It would have been fine if neither card being benchmarked used system memory, but it seems at least one does, if not both.

Memory and benchmark setup oddities aside, the X300 SE is the low end of the low end of the previous generation of ATI cards. The fact that the best the Volari 8300 can do is simply come close (and fall miserably behind in WoW at 1600x1200 it seems) is pretty sad.
 
Crusher said:
Memory and benchmark setup oddities aside, the X300 SE is the low end of the low end of the previous generation of ATI cards. The fact that the best the Volari 8300 can do is simply come close (and fall miserably behind in WoW at 1600x1200 it seems) is pretty sad.

why do you think that way!?
X300SE - 4 pipes, ~300/300 core memory, 64-bit memory
Volari 8300 - 2 pixel shader pipes, 4 texture pipes, ~ 300/300 core/memory , 64-bit memory

They seem equal, Volari even has 2 PS pipes vs 4 yet their performance is even...
Question is, can they make parts with 8/12/16 pipes...
 
Why do I think that way? This is the newest and (I assume) best card XGI has to offer, and it is merely on par with the worst card from ATI's previous generation. You think that's impressive?

Look at it this way... ATI had to cripple their old GPU and saddle it down with using mostly system RAM just to slow it down to the point where the 8300 could keep up with it :) Of course, XGI seems to realize what a dog it is, as they're mainly marketing it for its DVD playback abilities.

I'm still curious about the details here, the reviewer didn't seem to do a very thorough job documenting it all. I still don't see how the 8300 could have 128 MB of on-board memory looking at those pictures, and the review does say it "has flexible frame buffer configuration with local memory and shared system memory." I also think they should at least have included a test system with PC3200 to show how much the performance depends on system memory, and how it will perform in a more realistic configuration.
 
Crusher said:
Why do I think that way? This is the newest and (I assume) best card XGI has to offer, and it is merely on par with the worst card from ATI's previous generation. You think that's impressive?

Look at it this way... ATI had to cripple their old GPU and saddle it down with using mostly system RAM just to slow it down to the point where the 8300 could keep up with it :) Of course, XGI seems to realize what a dog it is, as they're mainly marketing it for its DVD playback abilities.

Just a few facts for you: V8 is faster then 8300. X300SE does not use system memory. XG47 have half tranzistors of RV370.
 
Putas said:
Just a few facts for you: V8 is faster then 8300. X300SE does not use system memory. XG47 have half tranzistors of RV370.

Thanks. Do you know if the 8300 use system memory, or is that all on-board too?
 
That`s still under scrutiny, the review isn`t very explicit. The thing is that they should also release an 8600 to compete with the 6600GT, so the 8300 isn`t the biggest baddest, it`s simply the new card that they released.

OTOH, the 8600 is quite late, it should have been released ages ago, now it`ll probably be rather uninteresting also, though I`m curious as to how they`ll implement SM3, and mostly how it`ll do in branching and wheter or not they`ll have vertex texturing.
 
Crusher said:
Thanks. Do you know if the 8300 use system memory, or is that all on-board too?
It depends on the memory configuration of the board and demands of the game. Since it support up to 256 Megs onboard it does not have to use any system memory. Allocation is dynamic, max framebuffer size is 512 MB (with 256 MB 8300).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The review said 128 MB, and my question was whether the entire 128 MB was dedicated video memory on the card or if part of it was on the card and the rest was system memory. Since their test system is using memory that is running 11% faster than the on board memory of both cards, that should be disclosed, don't you think?
 
But that`s quite a crappy review, isn`t it? I do think that it`s fiddling with system ram...but that`s a wild guess as there`s nowhere near enough information.
 
in current state with those 128 MB 8300 samples, 128 additional MB is allocated in system memory and increased up to 256 MB when running 3D.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Interesting...though I wonder how efficient their algorithm is...
 
Back
Top