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Category: Graphics Chips
Product: Xabre 400
Company: Silicon Integrated Systems Inc.
In the graphics chip category, we were very pleased to be able to award a Tai-wanese company that is no stranger to graphics technology, but one that is better known for its core logic chipsets. In an announcement that is sure to shake up the graphics industry, Taiwan's Silicon Integrated Systems launched just before Computex Taipei 2002 the latest in graphics processing unit (GPU) technology that aims to take on the market leaders Nvidia and ATI head to head. SiS has selected three Taiwanese graphics card specialists to be its technology partner for the launch of this sharp new product range, and once the products were officially released, one of these companies shared the results of its independent testing laboratories with Eurotrade. We have confirmed the figures with the laboratory.
The new Xabre range of GPUs consists of four chips, the Xabre 80, Xabre 200, Xabre 400 and Xabre 800 which correspond to the SiS 328, SiS 332, SiS 334 and SiS 336 respectively. All four render across four pipelines and eight texels, double the performance of comparable Nvidia GeForce products. Three of the four models in the Xabre series are also the world's first to support AGP 8X. And unlike
Nvidia's GeForce and ATI's Radeon GPUs, the Xabre series boasts a hardware pixel shader and environment bump mapping. With hardware support for these features and Direct X 8.01, the Xabre series is able to deliver much higher image picture quality and speed.
In benchmark testing of Xabre series engineering samples, not only did the Xabre 400 product score much more highly than the equivalent Nvidia GeForce product, (6228 compared to 5458), it also registered in four key areas that are not supported by the GeForce's hardware, namely: Game 4 Nature, environment bump mapping, pixel shader and advanced pixel shader. Testing has also shown that the Xabre series performs 30-percent better than Intel's 845 chipset for the Pentium 4.
SiS's pricing strategy will be competitive with Nvidia and ATI. Having its own wafer foundry, SiS is in greater control of pricing policy than its rivals and will aim at a much lower price point than Nvidia. The Xabre series will be a full 33-percent cheaper than the GeForce Ti series. The Xabre series is segmented between the GeForce MX and GeForce Ti series.
SiS not only leads the industry in core logic technology, but is also making great inroads in the graphics chip and IA arena. For example, the SiS550 SoC product that integrates CPU, northbridge, southbridge and GPU will be exhibited in diverse IA applications, such as Web phones, car PCs, panel PCs and set-top boxes.
Silicon Integrated Systems
Tel: 886-2-2916-1619
Fax: 886-2-2916-1618
E-mail: ellie@sis.com.tw
Web: www.sis.com.tw
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