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SiS Releases 0.13-micron Xabre600 GPU
EconolineCrush writes "NVIDIA may be struggling to bring the GeForce FX to market on a 0.13-micron manufacturing processes, but it looks like SiS has beat them to the punch. Tech Report has a review of the new Xaber600, which is the first mainstream GPU that I know of to be manufactured using 0.13-micron process technology. The Xabre600's performance isn't overly impressive, even when compared to a low-end Radeon 9000 Pro, but it's nice to see SiS one-upping the graphics giants when it comes to process technology."
Do SiS still support the DRI project?
I'm really confused by this article.
NVIDIA may be struggling to bring the GeForce FX to market on a 0.13-mircon manufacturing processes, but it looks like SiS has beat them to the punch. Tech Report has a review of the new Xaber600, which is the first mainstream GPU that I know of to be manufactured using 0.13-micron process technology.
nVidia's GeForce FX is already in production.
The Xabre600's performance isn't overly impressive, even when compared to a low-end Radeon 9000 Pro, but it's nice to see SiS one-upping the graphics giants when it comes to process technology.
Okay, if it's not that great, and nVidia is already producing theirs, how exactly are they beating them to the punch? It's nice to see another article on the 0.13-micron process, but I really have no idea what your point is supposed to be.
Is your browser retarded?
It is just a matter of time if the bottleneck is in the drivers. It would be great to see SiS get seriously competitive at the top end of the GPU battle and give both nVidia and ATI something about which to worry. If it's in the chip instead, though, all the driver tweaks in the world will not help it catch up.
Quickly supplying Linux drivers is a good move on their part, too. Wait too long, and they will cut themselves out of an important market. Windows ain't the only game in town anymore...
Good luck to SiS!!
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I think I'll reserve my "dancing in the street" jubilation for when a .13 micron process starts benefitting the consumer.
.13 Micron process will mean that these companies will be able to yield more chips per wafer, the pricing model on high end graphics cards has remained static over the past few years.
Manufacturing processes change quite frequently. Although a
When the top-of-the-line graphics card costs half of what it does today (heck, say... $150, instead of $300, or even $400), THEN that's cause to celebrate new manufacturing processes.
Until then, it's an incrimental improvement that's designed to maximize profit.
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For those who didn't make it through all 14 pages (just asking for a whoopin')... This card has nothing to do with GeforceFX capabilities:
Conclusions
The Xabre600's pixel shaders give it an obvious edge over the Geforce4 MX in a feature category that will only become more important as time goes on. Sure the GeForce4 MX 460 is faster now, but it may not support all the new eye candy in future DirectX 8.1 titles.
Against the Radeon 9000 Pro, the Xabre600 starts to look a lot worse. Here the DirectX compatibility playing field is level, but the Radeon 9000 Pro's pixel shader performance is much better, as is its performance in real world applications. Even if the Xabre600 is able to achieve price parity with the Radeon 9000 Pro, ATI's value offering is still going to be a better deal.
Let's not even get into how the Xabre600 compares with the GeForce4 Ti 4200, because it really doesn't. The GeForce4 Ti 4200 is likely to be the most expensive of the Xabre600's closest competitors, anyway.
The fact that the Xabre600's performance can't keep up with the competition doesn't mean that there isn't value to the part. That SiS is able to produce the chip on a 0.13-micron process is impressive in itself, and I'm happy to see that the new drivers have fixed all the compatibility problems. With the improved compatibility of the latest drivers, SiS at least has a DirectX 8-class graphics chip with the Xabre600, even if it's not the most competitive one.
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Does this reduction in size really matter? I mean, it's great that graphics companies can use lower quantities of resources to feed consumer demand (the environment, remember?), but does this particular advance really matter? I'll get excited when price points for new high-end graphics cards get much lower, performance significantly exceeds the curve, or a switch is made to a _much_ smaller manufacturing process (e.g. two digit nanometers).
I guess it just has to do with how much you need to have a faster graphics card than all your friends?
Sega always had a knack for "beating competitors to the punch." Sega Master System, Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast were all the first 8-, 16-, 32- and 128-bit systems, respectively. What they all had in common was that when the competitor came out with their system a few months later, Sega's was never as good (from a technology standpoint, of course; I won't go in to what systems were best).
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How many mircon's in a micron? :)
</nitpick>
Does anyone else find it a bit ironic that the smaller (.13 micron) video cards require the much larger heatsync/cooling systems?
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If SiS is going to spend millions on the 0.13 micron fab processes, they should really also attempt to make something that can compete with Ati and Nvidia's new cards. As it stands, being able to pump out .13 micron chips seems only like it's for bragging rights, because this chip barely compares with a Radeon 9000, which (I think) is only .15 micron. But hey, maybe SiS really likes spending the money.
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There have been a lot of new GPUs and video cards lately but, this one is a little unusual. Although this chip doesn't have quite as high a performance level as some of the newest cards, it also doesn't require a frickin liquid nitrogen refridgeration unit in order to operate safely. In fact, compared with the newest video cards, its small heat sink and fan seem down right anemic. That's a good thing.
I think some people are missing the point of this. Some have said ".13u, big whoop, how does that help me? on such a slow *ss chip". Well the point is that SiS is not trying to compete with the big boys on the high not, that's not their schtick. They want to push motherboards, esp to oems, and this product allows them to offer "higher" end graphics to their customers. It won't be long before they shrink the puppy enough to integrate directly into their chipsets, thereby offering oems an attractive compromise between speed and price.
So in the end, the fact that they can "push the envelope" as far as their production process goes does bode well for the consumer. You just have to look at this product in the context for which it was intended.
I think that the statements concerning the article are a bit flawed, considering that the manufacturing if the FX line is already underway by Nvidia. However, the introduction of SiS (or any competitor) into the market will give consumers more options. With only two graphics card manufacturers worth mentioning, the cost of the hardware will continue to follow the same trends. A third player may shake that formula up a bit. Somehow I doubt it, though.
Nuff said. If they're on the market now, they beat nVidia.
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Yes the price of top spec EVERYTHING in computing remains the same. Whether it be servers, PCs, Graphics cards or what ever. Moore's law states that things improve which means....
Ready for it....
WHAT WAS TOP SPEC LAST YEAR ISN'T THIS YEAR
Sorry for the shouting but really, what a silly thing to say. The Top Spec is the most expensive to manufacture as its new, has R&D to pay off and the volumes are lower. As the technology improves it becomes cheaper to make the old Top Spec thing as its now possible to make better things so making the older item becomes simpler, also the volumes go up as the cost goes down which again makes it cheaper to produce.
Saying "Top Spec cost half of what it does today" is just silly, the top spec card TODAY will cost HALF what it does now in 18 months time or so. That is because it will be the commodity item by then. The top spec card 18 months ago is now HALF the price that it was then.
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Maybe the benchmarks aren't that impressive, but I don't think that's the point. Having a third major manufacturer step up to give ATI and N'Vidia some competition can only be a good thing, if indeed in the future SiS starts making some high end cards. Hopefully it will prevent the others from sitting on their laurels like 3Dfx seemed to do when it introduced the VooDoo 5's and they flopped.
~S
Actually, the less area a chip takes up, the less likely it is to have a defect in it. It yields more chips per wafer because their are more chips on a wafer and each individual chip is less likely to have a defect.
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Where do i begin:
The dead horse must be turning in it's grave but do you really want to play games on linux? Sure i ran Soldier of FOrtune and it looked better than it did in Windows and Descent III and UT were awesome. But many linux users(including me) prefer Windows for gaming - why? Because i cannot play Tactical Ops on Linux/any other unix - simple reason - there is not much gaming software available for baby linux right now. I am not trolling but the point is i think SiS can forget Linux drivers and make their Windoze drivers better...alteast for now.
I doubt this card would give the ATI 9000 Pro much of a challenge going by the benchmarks in the article. It did give the Geforce4Mx card a run for its money but thats why the 9000 card from ATI entered the market and the ATI 9000 can be bought for 85$ (64MB version)...so unless this Xabre card costs somewhere around 40-50$, i dont see why someone would want this card as a gamer.
I like to play my games at 1024x768 and 16bit color and they usually run great on my Athlon 900 - what card do i have? nVidia Geforce2GTS with 32MB DDR - Even UT2003 ran great - given a choice, i, a budget conscious gamer would get a card somewhere near 80-100$, which is where the Geforce3 Titanium and the 9000Pro cards are right now. Leave the ti4600s and the 9700Pros to the really rich kids - getting a card faster than your friend's card(s) is a cliche - its how much you can shell out and how much you can extract from the little graphics card of yours. I still remember how my Alliance Promotion SVGA PCI card with 2MB VRAM kicked ass while my friend's AGP Trident 8mb sucked in most software rendering modes
It would be good for sis to bring out this card and price it low enough so they still make a profit - if not, well ATI and nVidia aren't stupid. Although they make a lot of money on their high-end cards, more cards are sold in the 70-100$ price range.
You simply have to hand it to a company whose latest financial report has the words Zeon PDF Driver Trial emblazoned across every page.