X-bit labs

S3 Chrome S27 Graphics Processor Review: Worthy Performance for Its Class? (page 25)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Anton Shilov

[ 12/29/2005 | 12:11 PM ]

Futuremark 3DMark05

3DMark05 has little in common with 3DMark03 as its tests stress efficient execution of numerous complex shaders and support of other advanced graphical technologies. The Chrome S27 beats its opponents here, though, notching a score of over 3000 points. Let’s see where this victory comes from.

The RADEON X1000 architecture was designed to give the maximum performance at executing complex pixel shaders, so the results of the RADEON X1300 PRO are quite understandable and are only worse than the results of the GeForce 6600 GDDR2 which has 8 pixel pipelines. The models of soldiers and a complex lighting model are the GPU load here, too, and the new graphics processor from S3 can handle all of that well enough thanks to its improved shader compiler and high core frequency. The only exception is the lowest resolution where it is slower than the RADEON X700 for some reason.

The second test loads mostly the vertex processors of the graphics card. The RADEON X1300 PRO has 2 of them against 4 of the Chrome S27 which becomes the winner. Clock rate is more important than the quantity of the processors, so the RADEON X700 is also slower than the new graphics card from S3. The memory subsystem load is relatively low in comparison with the first test and the S3 card doesn’t slow down much at the “eye candy” settings and is only second to the RADEON X1300 which uses the more economical multi-sampling method rather than the resource-consuming super-sampling.

The third test uses the longest and most complex shaders, but the new graphics card from S3 Graphics wins here, too, and enjoys a nice advantage over the RADEON X1300 PRO as well as the GeForce 6600 GDDR2 at that. The Chrome S27’s eight pixel pipelines clocked at 700MHz and its improved shader compiler ensure a 30-35% lead over the mentioned solutions from ATI and NVIDIA in the “pure speed” mode. The S3 card deservedly wins in 3DMark05 like it also did in 3DMark03, but we don’t quite refuse the supposition of some driver optimizations for this particular benchmark.