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Trident XP4 Reviewed
ceebABC writes "In a new review, the Trident XP4 got a nasty reception. Based on the tests, it sounds like Trident has got some work to do on the thing. Looks like this GPU is dead on arrival." Our last story on Trident mentioned them coming back from the dead. Maybe not.
Connection issues here too. Only the front and default story pages load. I'm surprised this comment page loaded (took a good minute from my cable modem though. No, every other site loads normally, so it's not some pira^H^H^H^Hcopyright infringing ass next door leaching away all my bandwidth)
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Maybe that annoyed spammer's getting his revenge on
People who know nothing shouldn't speak. The card was tested against a bunch of budget/midrange cards. On the low-end, the Radeon 9000 Pro starts at $80, while the "high-end" Radeon 9500 Pro goes all the way to $150. As for drivers, it could very well be that these drivers suck royally. But if they're this bad this late in the game, then what's Trident doing sending them out for review? Also, it must be noted that ATI's drivers aren't that great either, and that lots of beta drivers get tested (they are 'beta' not 'internal release' after all) and almost always they perform 50-70% as well as the final ones. So this card will get (at best) maybe 20 fps at 1024x768 with final drivers.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I think you're just being uninformed, and on top of it, you didn't read the article that you're criticizing.
Making a quick visit to the pricewatch would show you that Radeon 9000 Pro, which is one of the cards XP4 was being compared to, can be found for $81.
That's exactly the price target XP4 is going for, and it is performing less than 50% below R9000 Pro.
The review even talks about the driver issue, and how fully optimized drivers give another 20-30% performance improvement, which still won't be enough to reach the level of the competition.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
It makes me wonder why an AnandTech article [anandtech.com] gave such a different opinion. Which one is right?
A more level-headed review, sitting more or less in the middle of both extremes can be found at ZDnet.
It seems that Trident want's back into the GPU mainstream. They developed this card, the XP4, and are releasing it to benchmarkers early for reviewing purposes as many card makers do.
In one review, we have extremetech maxing up the resolutions and detail levels of some heavy hitting games, in addition to a 3dmark benchmark, against two of the biggest cards out there. These cards are at least twice the MSRP of this card. Extremetech then complains that the inexpensive card with beta drivers doesn't tread water against the established champs.
In a different review, anandtech set the resolution to something normal (how many gamers out there actually run the game at 1600x1200?) and they show the card as giving fluid performance, even beating the Radeon 9000 in one map. Albeit still behind the other two cards reviewed on some tests, they do mention that the drivers are beta and that finalized they will probably make the card perform much better.
I've been noticing that extremetech's reviews seem really, well, extreme. At least from my perception they will give good reviews to what can keep pace with the top cards or exceed the top card - and at times seems to focus on the war between NVidia and ATI for the title of Supreme cardmaker.
But how long ago was it that both of these companies were in Trident's situation? How long ago was it that these companies were struggling against 3dfx?
Like many before me ahve said, wait and see. This card could turn out to be the best card price for performance wise. It could come out and have the mobile version do everything else in. It could come out and be complete crap against whatever new cards the twin titans come out with.
----- I want my LART.
forever lost any business from me when the 4D wave sound card I bought new in 1999 didn't get Win2k drivers written for it (though 2k was out by the time the card was released). So, here's a card that works fine under Linux and such, but doesn't work at all with modern (windows) OS's. Worse, they refuse to even talk to you once you mention that you'd be willing to write the driver for them. Useless bags of shit. I'll never buy another Trident product as long as I live.
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
They did test at 1024x768 after people asked in the comments section, and posted the results there. Performance was still pretty dismal.
Maybe Extreme Tech is catering to the high end gamer, but they state that they only test at 2 resolutions 1024x768x32 w/ 4xAA and 1600x1200x32. But hey the site's run by ZDnet so whaddaya expect? Comprehensive tests?
Even assuming that the Trident's performance falls off disproportionately at high resolutions (so instead of 1/4 the speed of a GF4 Ti4200, it's maybe 1/3 the speed), it's still pretty pitiful. Nvidia's budget chip, the MX440, totally spanks it. It might be closer if you test the DX9 features that the Trident supposedly supports in hardware, but that's wait and see.
Add to this some comments from AnandTechs preview:
Take it with a grain of salt.