XGI Volari - The Real Deal

[SimGuy]

XGI Volari - The Real Deal

It really exists... and gives an impressive performance.

XGI, a brand new off-shoot company with the collective minds of the best SiS engineers and the old Trident graphics company, have rallied to create one of the fastest graphics processors designed to accelerate your DirectX 9 and DirectX 8.1 gaming experience for workstation, desktop and mobile users.

Engineering Samples of XGI's flagship product, the XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra video card, their high-end XGI Volari V8 Ultra and mid-range XGI Volari V5 Ultra could be viewed by members of the public and press at Computex Tapiei 2003.

Our friends over @ OCWorkbench.com managed to get a 3DMark2003 benchmark on a test system (specs below) to get a definitive truth on what this card performs like, at least in its current state. Included are photo's of the VPU itself and the cards themselves.

Source: OCWorkbench.com (http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=24;t=001243)

XGI Volari V5 Ultra VPU:
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2003/computex2003/xgi/DSC01528%20copy.jpg

XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra (TOP) & Volari Duo V5 Ultra (BOTTOM) Engineering Sample Cards
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2003/computex2003/xgi/xgi%20volari%20duo.jpg

XGI's "Super Video Processor"
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2003/computex2003/xgi/DSC01533%20copy.jpg

XGI Volari V8 Ultra Plugged In & Operational (the single chip version)
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2003/computex2003/xgi/DSC01546%20copy.jpg

http://members.rogers.com/simguy/bluedivider.jpg

Demo System Running an XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra
Intel Pentium 4 3200
GigaByte 8KNXP i875P
2 x 256 MB DDR400 SDRAM
XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra

XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra Plugged In & Running!
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2003/computex2003/xgi/DSC01567%20copy.jpg

3DMark2003 Run Through on an XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra Engineering Sample
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2003/computex2003/xgi/DSC01592%20copy.jpg

3DMark2003 Run Through on an XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra Engineering Sample (wider shot)
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2003/computex2003/xgi/DSC01599%20copy.jpg

[Thrax]

Er. Wow. That's roughly equal to a Radeon 9800 Pro on a similar setup. :eek2:

http://www.lostcircuits.com/video/ati_radeon9800/3dmark2003.gif

Upper left (First) navy blue diamond is a Radeon 9800 Pro on:

ASUS P4P800
Intel Pentium4 C3.2
ATI RADEON 9800 Pro
2 x 256 MB Mushkin PC3200 DDR at 2:2:2:7
Seagate Barracuda SATA-V (120GB)
Pioneer 12x DVDROM
Windows XP Pro
Service Pack 1a
DX9a
CATALYST 3.5

And this is a beta board with first-run drivers? Holy fsck!

[Geeky1]

Eh. If it's cheap, it might be worth it... my 9700 Pro does 5600 in 3dmark 2003 with a 2.51GHz AXP, and with the video at something like 390/342 (core/ram)...

[citrixmeta]

oh no!

not another Shim!!

[RWB]

Nice score, but what kind of video quality?

[pseudonym]

Damnit, grrrrrr.. Hope they take awhile to come out. Eh, I'll just have to sell my old cards to McBain. He has to get sick of his 8500 sooner or later :)

[Templar]

I had my doubts about these cards, but I guess I better stfu now :eek2:

Very intriguing. And is that two GPU's there or what could the other chip be besides another GPU?

[RWB]

2 GPU's my friend :)

[Templar]

:hrm: I think I'm going to hold off on that 9800 Pro.

[primesuspect]

MAN this is a great time to be a geek.....

[Geeky1]

'cept it's still a SiS venture... I don't care HOW fast it is, the fact that it's made by SiS is enough to make me not like it... and it'll have to be the best thing since the agp slot to win me over...

[Thrax]

And that ladies and gentlemen, is precisely the mindset and reason why ATI still makes less than nVidia, and AMD has been operating in the red for four years. :rolleyes2

[Geeky1]

Thrax... I never said it was a RATIONAL opinion... I just happen to dislike SiS, S3, Apple, Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway, and a number of other companies enough that unless a new product by them is something really earth-shattering, I won't bother with it... It may not be rational, but the fact of the matter is that I can't stand SiS, or the other companies I mentioned...

[Thrax]

I'd say zero to equal-to-fastest-available-retail-card is pretty earth-shattering, wouldn't you?

Seeing SiS has never made a video card faster than a GeForce4 MX440, a new company from old employees springs up out of nowhere, makes an announcement about their existence 3 weeks ago and says no cards are available for testing.

Now cards are available for testing, and it's equal to a Radeon 9800 Pro on barely-beta silicon, and first revision drivers.

Nope...Not earth-shattering.

[primesuspect]

I don't think it's earth shattering at all.

Copycatting innovation is a time tested american corporate tradition.

A company with people, cash, and equipment can simply wait for some other pioneer to blaze the way, innovate, and succeed, and then swoop in and duplicate their efforts with minor tweaks, changes, or improvements, and take market share away. Happens all the time in the business world.

Earth shattering? Hardly.. Exciting? To be sure.. Competition is always exciting.

[SimGuy]

primesuspect said
I don't think it's earth shattering at all.

Copycatting innovation is a time tested american corporate tradition.

A company with people, cash, and equipment can simply wait for some other pioneer to blaze the way, innovate, and succeed, and then swoop in and duplicate their efforts with minor tweaks, changes, or improvements, and take market share away. Happens all the time in the business world.

Earth shattering? Hardly.. Exciting? To be sure.. Competition is always exciting.

It's Earth-Shattering for XGI, which if their current progress on the Volari series is any indicator, will be making quite the impression on the mid-range and high-end graphics markets.

In the last.... 5 years... have we seen or heard of any great graphics processors from SiS or Trident? This is uncharted territory for BOTH of these companies, and certainly for XGI.

[Geeky1]

Thrax, it's no faster than the 9700 pro in my nf7 is... I ran 3dmark '03 along with '01... the 18,363 or whatever it was in '01 came with a ~5600 in 3dmark '03. At this point, I'm not that impressed.

[Geeky1]

Simguy, it may be earth-shattering for SiS and XGI, but frankly, outside of the fact that more competition is a good thing, SiS is still basically totally irrelevant. It's SiS ferchristssake! They'd have to pull off something akin to what AMD did with the K7 for me to even bother considering buying one.

[Black Hawk]

My main concern is price...

[primesuspect]

Now, if they release this 9800 pro-equivalent card for $150, then THAT will be earth-shattering.

even though they need twice as many gpus to do it

;D

[SimGuy]

XGI Makes Play To Be Third Graphics Force

PCI Express? DDR-II? November 2003 Release Date?

THE YOUTHFUL CEO of XGI, CP Lin, outlined his firm’s strategy to the INQUIRER here this morning.

And it’s an interesting one, we believe, which might shake up the current grip ATI and Nvidia have on the graphics market.

Lin showed us his Volari reference cards, including the two interesting dual GPU models that are expected to be for sale towards the end of November. We’ve also pictures of these, which we’ll file a bit later on.

He said that XGI, which spun off as a separate company in June/July of this year, is focusing on developing technology for the graphics card market, and has two R&D teams which work in parallel on product ideas. It’s currently got 300 people working for it, and he said that of those people, 87% were involved in R&D, design and the like.

The high end Volari cards, he said, allows the firm to cut costs and increase performance without incurring the gigantic R&D costs that Nvidia boasts. In fact, said Lin, its market cap is around half a billion dollars, and Nvidia sometimes claims development of its chips cost double that.

Lin said that the dual process on the two high end reference cards allow two frames to be processed at once. That results in a performance figure of around 1.7 – having the two chips yoked together, each processing its own frames and its own memory. People building and branding its boards can choose from DDR and DDR2.

XGI is developing a custom chip – the XB306 – which will support PCI Express by taking a bus bridge approach. While PCI Express will eventually supplant AGP, Lin thought that process would take around a year.

He said that XGI has not yet set prices for the range of cards it offers – but they’ll be set around the same as ATI, spread through a range from the high to the low end.

XGI believes that it can break the duopoly of the other two graphics vendors by offering comparable performance. And that, he said, is being helped by the fact that the tight grip the Big Two have on their partners, who make the cards.

That, he claimed, gave XGI a heaven sent opportunity which it is bent on exploiting, with the firm aiming to achieve profitability by 2005 and – a bold claim this – to be market leader by 2007.

He described the current situation in the development of graphics chips as “crazy competition” and said he thought the increased expenditure on R&D means that the big players are running out of resources.

Source: The Inquirer (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11749)

[Geeky1]

Ok, so maybe I'll take them seriously in 2007. ;D

[Enverex]

http://www.xgitech.com/

For more information.

NS

[Thrax]

Geeky1 said
Thrax, it's no faster than the 9700 pro in my nf7 is... I ran 3dmark '03 along with '01... the 18,363 or whatever it was in '01 came with a ~5600 in 3dmark '03. At this point, I'm not that impressed.

Your chip is faster than a 3.2 P4 in 3DMark. Your video is clocked almost at Radeon 9800 Pro speeds. Your video card is at the very least, five retail versions later than the beta silicon ATI first displayed for the 9700 Pro. Additionally, your driver platform is approximately 2 years old.

Now what does the XGI benchmark have?

A P4 that's slow in 3DMark. The video card is first-run beta silicon. A driver platform no more than 5 months old. And it's equal to a 9800 Pro...That's quite a feat.

[fuxor]

He said that XGI has not yet set prices for the range of cards it offers – but they’ll be set around the same as ATI, spread through a range from the high to the low end.
This makes me uncomfortable. I was hoping to get a 9700 equivalent for under $200 =\

if their prices are just a bit lower, they can bank on stealing some business away from the big two.

[GHoosdum]

Since the article says they'll price their chips "around the same as ATi" I think I'll just stick with ATi... the only reason I ever bought SiS boards before was because they were so much cheaper...

[Gobbles]

Im interested in seeing how well they do their drivers, as thats almost, if not as, important as the hardware itself...


Tek

[WuGgaRoO]

its interesting to say the least...i agree witht hepeople on the forum that say that competition is good...very good