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Joytech Apollo Blade Monster Xabre 400 128MB Video Card Review Tweet CONTENTS Peculiarities of the video card Test conditions, 2D estimation Comparison of performance of 64MB and 128MB cards based on the Xabre 400, comparison of operation of the card under different driver versions  Estimation of 3D graphics quality improvement on the latest driver versions  Conclusion As far as NVIDIA is concerned, we have studied almost all products on its solutions available on our market (though we are still expecting some more GeForce4 MX and Ti 4200 based cards to arrive). As to ATI... well, all RADEONs 8500 seem to be covered. But we've forgotten about SIS and its new product - Xabre. Last time the Xabre left not very good impression. But!  Persistency of SIS in promotion of its new product and improvement of the chip production technology is not unnoticeable, and there are such companies as Joytech and Gigabyte which are dealing with the Xabre! Earlier we reviewed some Triplex products and, in particular, its card on this GPU. By the way, let me remind you of the articles on the Xabre based products that we have already published:  Theoretical materials and reviews of video cards which concern functional properties of the SIS Xabre GPU SIS Xabre Review  Triplex Millennium Silver Xabre Pro Review  Today we will examine a video card from the Taiwanese company Joytech  famous for its Apollo Graphics trade mark. Its video cards are always sky-blue and based on the Joytech's own design. Besides, the company couples cards with memory of the maximum size but also of the highest possible access time.  Currently the market offers only Xabre 400 cards operating at 250 MHz. The  Xabre 200 (200 MHz) and Xabre 80 (200 MHz, SDR or 64-bit DDR memory) are still unsupported by manufacturers because the Xabre 400 with its price/speed ratio does not look attractively in its market niche, and the Xabre 200 must be priced as the GeForce2 MX, which will hardly please potential manufacturers. The Xabre 600 (275 MHz) will come soon as well but SIS hasn't yet announced mass production of such chips. However, the overclocking of the card in question shows that operation at such frequencies is possible.  Card The card has an AGP x2/x4 interface, 128 MB DDR SDRAM located in 8 chips on both PCB sides.

Joytech Apollo Blade Monster Xabre 400 128MB

Joytech Apollo Blade Monster Xabre 400 128MB
The card comes with Samsung memory of 4ns access time which corresponds to 250 (500) MHz. The memory works at this frequency. The GPU runs at 250 MHz as well.

Comparison with the reference design, front view
Joytech Apollo Blade Monster Xabre 400 128MB	Reference card SIS Xabre 400 64MB

Comparison with the reference design, back view
Joytech Apollo Blade Monster Xabre 400 128MB	Reference card SIS Xabre 400 64MB

An experienced tester doesn't have to look at the marking of the memory chips: 8 DDR SDRAM chips of the old package housing 128 MB are typical only of Samsung (almost all cards with such memory size and the old design without a BGA package have memory from Samsung). 

Although the design is based on the reference one, the guys from Joytech made their own card. Its PCB is shorter and the elemental base is a little different. But the main parts of the card, including the SIS 301 coprocessor, are in their due places: 

Now let's pop into the box and see what's inside. 
 

Joytech Apollo Blade Monster Xabre 400 128MB
CD with drivers, CD with Sacrifice game, brief installation guide and S-Video extender.

And the box... 

Joytech Apollo Blade Monster Xabre 400 128MB
... has a traditional bloody name written on it. This package is designed for the whole Xabre series (and the chip used is marked in a circle below).

That's all we had to say about peculiarities of the card. 

Overclocking

The card managed to reach frequencies higher than the Xabre 600 must work at. But to be safe we reduced the clock speed to 275/550 MHz - thus, we tested the Xabre 600 as well :-) 

Note:

• in course of overclocking you must provide additional cooling, in particular, for the card (first of all, for its memory):

 



• overclocking depends on a definite sample, and you shouldn't generalize the results of one card to all video cards of this mark or series. The overclocking results are not the obligatory characteristics of a video card.

Test system and drivers

• Pentium 4 2200 MHz based system: 
• Intel Pentium 4 2200 (L2=512K); 
• ASUS P4T-E (i850); 
• 512 MB RDRAM PC800; 
• Quantum FB AS 20GB; 
• Windows XP. 

In the tests we used SIS drivers 3.03. It's impossible to disable VSync forcedly, but all tests used today can do that on their own. 

For comparison we used the following cards: 

• Leadtek WinFast A170T (GeForce4 MX 440, 270/200 (400) MHz, 64 MB, driver 29.42); 
• ATI RADEON 7500 (290/230 (460) MHz, 64 MB, driver 6.118); 
• Hercules 3D Prophet 9000 Pro (RADEON 9000, 250/200 (400) MHz, 128 MB, driver 6.118); 
• Hercules 3D Prophet 9000 Pro (RADEON 9000 Pro, 275/275 (550) MHz, 128 MB, driver 6.118). 
• Reference card SIS Xabre 400 (250/250 (500) MHz, 64 MB, driver 3.02.51); 

Test results

1. Almost all modern 3D accelerators can have 2D quality much dependent on a certain sample, and it's impossible to trace all cards; 
2. 2D quality depends not only on a video card, but also on a monitor and a cable; 
3. Besides, certain monitors do not get along with certain video cards. 

For 3D performance estimation we used: 

• 3DMark2001 SE Pro (MadOnion/Remedy), - DirectX 8.0, Hardware TCL, multitexturing, LOW Details, DXTC OFF, double buffering, 24-bit Z buffer

As you might remember, the Xabre's drivers support 3 Turbo Modes which can be changed only in the Registry: 

By changing the variable highlighted on the screenshot one can modify operation of the accelerator. In our first review on the Xabre we noted that at the highest speed (TurboMode=3) the graphics quality worsens considerably, there are problems even with bilinear filtering. 

But it was with the old driver version. This time we fulfilled the tests on the latest version - 3.03, that is why it's possible to track how the performance changes. At the same time we can estimate a performance drop when the TurboMode is disabled (TurboMode=0). We will also compare performance of 64MB and 128MB cards. 

Performance

3D Mark2001 SE

Game1 Low Details

As for the drivers - the higher the version, the lower the speed, though the gap is insignificant. And when the TurboMode is disabled, the performance drops by a great margin. 

Game2 Low Details

The questions regarding the TurboMode and comparison of the driver versions are the same as in the previous case. 

Game3 Low Details

And we have nothing more to say about comparison of the driver version to what we mentioned above. 

Game4

On the newer driver version the performance gets strongly worse. Why? It will soon become clear :-). 

3D MARKS

3D quality

Game 1
SiS Xabre, TurboMode=0	GeForce3
SiS Xabre, TurboMode=3 (Old driver)	SiS Xabre, TurboMode=3 (New driver)
Game 2
SiS Xabre, TurboMode=0	GeForce3
SiS Xabre, TurboMode=3 (Old driver)	SiS Xabre, TurboMode=3 (New driver)
Game 4, example 1
SiS Xabre, TurboMode=0	GeForce3
SiS Xabre, TurboMode=3 (Old driver)	SiS Xabre, TurboMode=3 (New driver)
Game 4, example 2
SiS Xabre, TurboMode=0	GeForce3
SiS Xabre, TurboMode=3 (Old driver)	SiS Xabre, TurboMode=3 (New driver)

Well, the new version 3.03 provides a bit lower efficiency but much higher quality (the rumor has it that the improvement is achieved at the expense of LOD BIAS but I haven't found the exact proof)! Of course, the naturally good quality is not obtained but I hope soon it won't be necessary to switch to the TurboMode=0. Besides, the quality of processing of pixel shaders is higher again. 

However, there are some problems: for example, the Morrowind game can't see shaders of the SIS Xabre. And there are some old quality flaws in certain games. Above all, lack of the trilinear filtering in TurboMode=3 is a real disadvantage. 

Nevertheless, the progress is evident. We haven't considered yet operation of the Xabre in other tests but soon we will test one more video card based on this processor - stay tuned! 

Conclusion

We are now witnessing how two processors are being destroyed: RADEON 7500 and GeForce4 MX 440. But while the former must leave the market as it is going to be replaced with the RADEON 9000, the latter won't give up easily. This will probably result in a severe price war because the cost price of the GeForce4 MX is quite low. And will the Xabre with its drawbacks in 3D graphics be able to stand against the RADEON 9000 which possesses anisotropy and trilinear filtering? Price will be a determining factor. If the prices are equal the Xabre will lose. 

You can find more comparative characteristics of video cards of this and other classes in our 3Digest. 

Highs:

• Good performance in modern 3D games similar to the ATI RADEON 9000/Pro; 
• Excellent quality of the card and good overclocking potential; 
• 128MB memory; 
• SIS 301, i.e. nice TV quality output; 
• Decent 2D quality; 
• 3D quality is improving in the new driver versions; 

• Lack of the trilinear and anisotropic filterings makes the Xabre unattractive for advanced (in 3D) users (though the TurboMode=0 supports the trilinear filtering) 
• Scarce set of accessories (no necessary adapters and too old games are supplied). 

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