X-bit labs

Started by: Joz | Date 03/20/08

Comments: 5 | Last Comment:  03/24/08

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1. This little writing is so biased it makes me want to take my own shit and eat it.

wow. Go to a good school and go learn how to write good papers, then come back and write without your bias crapshit that you spewed into the article.

2. Like what you wrote is really classy. :)

I think that X-bit Labs' assessment of this card is correct. It's a low end card that's not good for modern gaming. See the review here: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdiy.yesky.com%2Fvga%2F484%2F8040484.shtml&langpair=zh%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

It does look like it's fine for older titles, and is competitive at the low end. Unfortunately it's not in stock at the store, so it's not possible to buy it. So I guess I have to agree again with X-bit Labs, that there's need for people to be able to buy the card for it to succeed.

3. Performance is important. But it is second to driver quality. Previously s3 hardware, regardless of their performance, were garbage. What good is a card that is 20% faster than another if it has problems in 20% of your games??

4. Sad fact about S3 is that they rely on all their sales being made by

1)people who lack the tech knowledge to understand that these cards are junk, even at their price point, compared to Nvidia and AMD/ATI

2) bottom feeder PC manufacturers, who don't care what lies they have to tell to sell their systems, so long as the components inside were bought at rock bottom prices

If S3 had any quality whatsoever, Intel would have bought them out. If even a company as desperate (in the graphics field) as Intel won't touch a supposed significant player, you know that company has nothing to offer.

BTW, S3 cynically touts DX10, which as we all know, isn't even required for Aero in Vista. So what value does that tick-box feature bring to the table, when DX10 and Vista has a major negative impact on 3D performance, even for powerful cards?

Even where S3 may have limited hopes of valid impact in very limited areas, S3 is always a dollar short and a day late. S3 once had a good portfolio of 2D video decode IP, but it never manages to beat Nvidia or ATI in even this area. The two big boys are already accelerating hidef video decoding in their low end cards now, and this particular feature will add no more value by the years end than desktop 2D does now.

5. Probably wouldn't be a bad card for a budget machine that will see some casual gaming. It may be better than intel integrated graphics, but that's not saying much. From the bench marks on the link posted by ET there it I can't say I would be compelled to buy it over AMD's new integrated graphics chipset especially if I was going to build an HTPC system. No I would only consider going with this if I already had an intel system with Intel Graphics.

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