Xabre 400 Roundup - August 2002
Conclusions
That video cards manufacturers drew attention to Xabre400 is definitely a good sign. We see that it's a really promising graphics chip. Despite the flaws with 3D image quality, Xabre400 video cards can and must compete with GeForce4 MX and Radeon7500 lines. But the fate of Xabre400 is not a concern of ours. If you intend to buy a mid-end video card and still are hesitating, you've got to have a clear idea of the Xabre core and video cards based on that.
- Xabre400 video cards support AGP8x;
- On VIA-based motherboards, Xabre400-based video cards switch to the AGP2x mode;
- Xabre400 has a very low 3D graphics quality;
- Drivers for Xabre lack key settings;
- Drivers for Xabre have integrated 3D-glasses support;
- SiS rarely updates drivers;
- Xabre400-based video cards may have excellent 2D quality, but that depends on the manufacturer;
- Xabre will hardly suit to dual-monitor PCs because of the weak secondary RAMDAC;
- Xabre has a good TV-out;
- At speed, Xabre400 is superior to GeForce4 MX440;
- Vertex shaders in Xabre are software-driven;
- With Xabre, you can look through walls in games
Now weigh all the pros and cons and decide for yourself if it is worth buying such a video card. The only superiority worth mentioning is the high speed at low price. The 2D quality can be simply above any praise, but that depends on who manufactured the video card. We made sure of that with our own eyes: the Gigabyte board can rank equally with Matrox boards, while Elitegroup products looked worse than any 'noname' video card of the Riva TNT era.
If we consider each card separately, then it's the reference board that performed best. SiS proved it in practice that Xabre400 is not a SiS315 at all and even not a GeForce4 MX. We wish the video cards manufacturers didn't change anything in the Xabre reference design, in that case they would get highest scores and excellent 2D quality.
Gigabyte SP64D-H is slightly inferior to the reference. Its 2D graphics quality is almost as high, since it's very hard to tell the difference when comparing two ideal images. This board is fast, and if Gigabyte takes more care of the cooler, it could overclock the core up to 300 MHz. There is a DVI-out and a TV-out. On the whole, it's a nice piece of product on a new graphics chip.
ECS AG400 spoils the impression by its low 2D image quality. Because of that, I wouldn't recommend the video card to anyone. Elitegroup must have saved more on the video card than they should have done. As is required, there is a TV-out, but no cables shipped. There is a 3D-glasses connector, but no glasses themselves in the package, and it's no good looking for suitable ones elsewhere. We wish they furnished the card with a DVI-out. But that card overclocked best of all the others. Reminding again that such a low 2D quality in the 21st century is inexcusable.
Vinix VX-3340 is god knows what. On the one hand, the 2D image is awful, the way it is at ECS AG400, on the other hand, the performance and overclocking potentials are not bad. In fact, we didn't make use of the improved power system, so it makes no sense talking about its advantages (if any). Since it's impossible to run it at 2D, I wish I wouldn't see it on retail stores. This is more likely to come true - who needs an unknown Vinix while such reputable brands like Gigabyte, PowerColor, Inno3D and others are easily available?
SiS can be proud of PowerColor who produced EvilXabre400 with 128 Mb on board. This board demonstrates excelellent speeds, best overclocking potentials, good 2D quality, has a cord and a TV-out adapter in the shipping package. A remarkable product which has only one flaw - it is not easy to install under Windows XP (under Win98, thereused to be no problems with that). If that annoying stuff is fixed in future releases of the drivers, then we can say that EvilXabre is the leader among the Xabre400-based video cards. It's also possible that 128-Mb Xabre-based boards produced by third-party manufacturers might start hitting thestores soon. The tests showed that extra memory was to the benefit of that GPU, and why not to make use of that?
Summing up with our review, I wouldn't give one-one assessments for both the Xabre400 chip and the derived video cards. As anything that doesn't fit within standards, it has its own pros and cons. Compared to what we've seen in SiS315, the new Xabre400 is a big leap forward. Moving at such steps, SiS might end up catching up with ATi and nVidia. What matters is moving in the right direction.
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