Xabre Graphics Card Reviewed

Daniel Rutter writes: "Graphics cards using the SIS Xabre chipset don't seem to have quite made it to the retail market in most of the world yet, but they're on sale now here in Australia. I've checked out Triplex's shiny XabrePRO card. It's weird. Not just because it's silver, in typical Triplex fashion. It's also got weird drivers. Not bad drivers. Just... weird. And it makes a weird noise. Seriously." Check out those screenshots, and wonder.

Comments

Yay, dansdata!

[moonbender]

Hey, I didn't know that guy actually submitted his reviews to Slashdot. I love his reviews, he usually doesn't do cutting edge stuff like Tom's Hardware or Anandtech do, but tests periphery equipment and fans (his HSF comparance is awesome). He writes quite entertainingly, without taking himself or the topic too seriously. The site could use a makeup, though, but I prefer the disorder to the clickfests of THG and AT. Sorry if this comes up as advertisement, I swear to god I'm not affiliated with him in any way, I really just like the site. :)

Mirrored

[Anonymous Coward]

Here: http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~glmclear/xabre/

(and some extra stuff to keep the lameness filter at bay.)

my graphics card makes noise too

[oskie]

My graphics card makes noise too. All I have to do is open up some document in Acrobat Reader (in Linux of course), press the mouse anywhere in the document, and move it up just a pixel or too. Then there is a slight noise coming from something in the computer as long as you hold the mouse button. It sounds kind of like when a hard drive seeks, only muffled. And with very few variations - almost a constant sound.

I know it is not the harddrive that makes the noise (it is much louder), and it is not the fan on the graphics card. It is not a conflict with the sound card (because the sound is produced even with all speakers off). It is not the PC speaker (I disconnected it), but it could be the buzzer on the motherboard (that replaces the speaker when it is disconnected). But it could also be the graphics card. It is a Leadtek NVidia Riva TNT card by the way.

NO LINUX SUPPORT

[Master Bait]

SiS will not release chip docs except under NDA. They are also NOT writing their own X Window driver. One person, Tom Winischofer is cobbling together support based on SiS's older X Window drivers. If you get a Xabre or have a 315 video card or SiS 740, 850-based motherboard, please download his drivers and test them for bugs.

Re:Yeah, umm, how about X?

[mabinogi]

> I can't buy hardware that doesn't support Linux, and so I have no time to read about hardware rewviews which only mention Windows.

An attitude like that won't help expand the variety of hardware available....
If it's new and interesting technology, then it's new and interesting technology, regardless of where it runs.

Linux support for most video cards doesn't come from the manufacturer, it comes from people who look at a review, really like the sound of the card, notice there's no linux support, and start working on fixing it.

Besides which, I havent seen linux mentioned in the last few ATI or nVidia card reviews....yet drivers exist for them.

Also, SIS are one of the few companies that have actually provided their own linux drivers in the past, so there's no reason to believe they won't now.
Especially when the drivers section of the Xabre website doesn't even have Windows drivers there yet.

And as a matter of fact, every modern video card will work with linux and X via the VESA standards (though admittedly the performance won't be as good as a native driver)