XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra: first test results and specified roadmap
Until this moment XGI´s Volari GPU series were a herd of "dark horses" expected in several weeks early in December. However, we´ve seen only photos of Volari Duo V8 Ultra alongside the "official" test results demonstrated by the company at Computex 2003.
But our Kameraden from German TecChannel somehow obtained a sample of series´ more powerful XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra (below) as well as more specified roadmap.
First, I guess it would be useful to refresh the specs of the entire Volari series:
XGI Volari GPU series |
| GPU |
Volari Duo V8 Ultra |
Volari Duo V5 Ultra |
Volari V8 Ultra |
Volari V8 |
Volari V5 Ultra |
Volari V5 |
Volari V3 |
| 2 x GPU |
+ |
+ |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
| AGP 8x |
+ |
| Core |
350 MHz |
300 MHz |
| DDR |
375+ MHz |
375+ MHz |
375+ MHz |
325+ MHz |
375+ MHz |
325 MHz |
250 MHz |
| DDR2 |
500 MHz |
450 MHz |
500 MHz |
450 MHz |
- |
| DRAM |
512Mb |
512Mb |
256Mb |
256Mb |
256Mb |
256Mb |
128Mb |
| DX9 |
9.0 |
| OpenGL |
1.4 |
1.3 |
| Pipelines |
16 |
8 |
8 |
8 |
4 |
4 |
2 |
| V-Shader |
4 |
4 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
| P-Shader |
8 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
| Shader version |
2.0 |
1.3 |
| Video-In |
Optional |
| 2 x ouput |
XV301 |
3õ |
| 2 x digital ouput |
Duo XV301 |
3õ |
| DAC |
400 MHz |
- |
As you can see, the first two variants imply dual-GPU design. Our German colleagues tested the most powerful of them — Volari Duo V8 Ultra. Before proceeding to the test results, I´ll just mention that cards on Volari Duo V8 Ultra are expected early in December from XGI´s closest partners, including Club 3D, Gigabyte and PowerColor. The price is said to be about 400 euros.
As for the tested sample, it featured 256Mb of Samsung´s DDR2 memory (450MHz (900MHz DDR)), 2 x 350MHz XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra GPUs. It was tested in the Windows XP system with DirectX 9 along with NVIDIA´s GeForce FX 5950 Ultra/5700 Ultra (ForceWare 52.16) and ATI´s RADEON 9800XT/9600XT (Catalyst 3.8). XGI´s Volari Duo V8 Ultra was tested with beta drivers from 10/24/2003. The testbed also featured i875P-based motherboard, 3.2GHz Pentium 4, 2x256Mb Corsair´s CL=2.0 memory. The test results are below:
3DMark2001 SE Pro
3DMark03
Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena
AquaMark 3
AquaMark 3
AquaMark 3
As you can see, XGI´s most powerful Volari Duo V8 Ultra doesn´t pretend to be the world-top GPU. Nevertheless, it holds a firm position between the top RADEON 9800 XT / GeForce FX 5950 Ultra and mainstream RADEON 9600 XT / GeForce FX 5700 Ultra. I believe this is important for a debuting company. Besides, Volari Duo V8 Ultra drivers were just a beta. If XGI plans are successful, we might see new reviews in our Video section before X-mas.
Finally, below is XGI´s GPU roadmap:
As you can see, entry-level Volari V3 and V5 should be transformed into a new XG42 core with DirectX 9 support in H1 2004. In their turn, Volari V5 Ultra and V8 will be replaced by XG41 core. The most powerful V8 Ultra and Volari V5 Duo Ultra are to be replaced by DirectX 9.1-optimized XG45 and XG46, respectively, in about H2 2004.
Finally, early in 2005 the company plans to release a new XG5X core supporting DirectX 10 to replace Volari Duo V8 Ultra.
Source: Tecchannel.de
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