The Kyro 4800 kickin some butt.....

[ThExorcist]

I have done some simple calculations to determine where the Kyro 4800 will probably perform. You all may be surprised!!! First of all, given that a couple of online stores have already posted Kyro 4800 at 225mhz core and from all the recent interviews and forum posts I have read, it seems very likely that the core will be 225mhz. So these calculations are based on a 225mhz core.

First the different Kyro cards and how they scaled...

Kyro 1 - Core 115 (This core will be used as the base)
Kyro 2 - Core 175 (52% increase in core from Kyro 1 and 52% increase in performance, which can be verified by any website that reviewed Kyro 1 and 2)
Kyro 4800 - Core 225 (29% increase in core from Kyro 2 and expected 29% increase in performance)

Based on the Unreal 2 Test Anandtech has benchmarked with recently Build 848
these numbers can be found using this formula:

(Kyro 2 fps * .29) + Kyro 2 fps = Kyro 4800 fps

640x480(fps):
Kyro 2 - 39.1
Kyro 4800 - 50.4
Beats everything below Geforce 2 Ultra and places seventh

800x600(fps):
Kyro 2 - 34.9
Kyro 4800 - 45
Beats everything below Geforce3 Ti 200 and places fifth

1024x768(fps):
Kyro 2 - 25.2
Kyr0 4800 - 32.5
Beats everything below Geforce3 Ti 200 and places fifth

1280x1024(fps)
Kyro 2 - 15.6
Kyro 4800 - 20.1
Beats everything below Geforce3 Ti 200 and places fifth

1600x1200(fps)
Kyro 2 - 10.7
Kyro 4800 - 13.8
Beats everything below Radeon 7500 and places sixth

The technology behind this Damn card continues to impress. Since these are worst case tests on the Unreal 2 Engine it is probably safe to assume that 1024x768 is playable and possibly 1280x1024 since Tile Based Renders don't have as many fluctuations in their framerates and further optimizations are still being carried out. One thing I noticed is that on Anandtech's recent review of the Geforce4 cards, the Radeon and other Geforce cards had higher framerates than in the original test of the Unreal 2 Test. This is due to a newer build of the engine(since hardware was the same). Based on the new build 856 expect the Kyro 2 and Kyro 4800 to perform even better, much like the other cards.

Build 856 1024x764

Now remember I did not take into account this mysterious Enhanced T&L feature of the new Kyro 4800. This may add more framerates to the above resolutions or may not do diddly.

My point to all of this is that if the Kyro 3 scales as efficiently as this..... :Q well you can think about the rest. By the way I wouldn't worry to much about future Kyro cards not coming out. ST Micro is still producing Kyro 1, 2 and 4800's while negotiations continue. Who ever buys there Graphic Dept. will market the Kyro 3 and distribute it to manufacturers(Hercules, Videologic, etc). More good news is that Imgtec confirms in the interview below that all the potential buyers are going to be very aggressive in the High-end Market. The reason before why they weren't, was due to ST Micros relaxed and casual attitude towards the video card market (This can be confirmed by them selling their Graphics Dept. and not really caring about the small 15 million they made). The Kyro 3 is ready but sleeping.....

Interview

 

[Borg81]

I was under the impression that this card was not going to be released to to STmicro scrapping their graphics biz.

Is this right?

 

[ThExorcist]

Actually, no that isn't true. That is what everybody quickly assumed when they heard that ST Micro was selling there Graphics Division. Nobody ever said that Kyro or any future variants of Kyro were no longer going to be made. People went as far as to assume that ST Micro owned the Tile Based Rendering techniques that ImgTec developed. This is far from the truth. Business is being conducted as usual until the sale is completed and then slowly the new owner will merge the divison they just bought. It wouldn't make sense for them to just stop production right on a dime because they don't want to make videocards anymore. You have to remember they were and are making money but the videocard market isn't where there interest lies...


This in turn is good for all consumers since the potential buyers are!!!!

 

[Killrose]

You Sir, are a brave man.

Or have one hell of a flame retardant constitution...hehe.

 

[nRollo]

With R8500s $150 and GF4s almost here, aren't Kyro 4800s irrelevant?

 

[spanky]

<< You Sir, are a brave man.

Or have one hell of a flame retardant constitution...hehe. >>



exactly what i was thinking too... hahaha

 

[Borg81]

Saw this over at the Inquirer

"ST Micro said it was abandoning work on its Kyro graphics implementations a few weeks back. µ"

Please don't flame me I just wanna know what is going on.

 

[ThExorcist]

I am just pointing out some facts as well as a few opinions. As I mentioned earlier, I am mostly impressed with how their 2 pipeline, 1 TMU is holding up with these 4 pipeline 2TMU cards that are out now. Not that I was necessarily saying that this card was going to be a killer card but still impressive for what its got to work with. I am an admirer of technology and not an advocate of any particular brand. I am willing to bet that you will all see a Kyro 3 though and future Kyro's as well. Someone has already bet a particular body part that Kyro 3 will come out. Has nothing to do with being brave...

Borg in the interview above ImgTec specifically states that ST MIcro will continue production until sale is complete and that they will continue to develop drivers and support for all owners.

P.S. I may sound very confident but there is a reason for that.... s t a y t u n e d

 

[Leon]

Considering that KyroII will not render cubemaps (which will be a lot fequently in Unreal2), your comparison is pointless.

 

[Mingon]

Wow an extra 25% from the Kyro II what an improvement......

this review overclocked the kyro II by 15% and only acheived a 8-10% increase.

 

[Sunner]

Remember that the Kyro I and II were entirely different cores, while the Kyro Ultra(or whatever) is basically just a higher clocked Kyro II.
Thus I doubt the Ultra will increase it's performance vs the Kyro II as linearly as the Kyro II did vs the Kyro I.

The Kyro III could be interesting though.

 

[giocopiano]

PowerVR cards are always turning up "a day late and a dollar short". Neon250, Kyro, Kyro II, and now a Kyro II "Titanium makeover". The company is getting further and further behind and I found it a seriously buggy card. Other brands are way ahead of the Kyro so why not take the real now over vaporware.

 

[vedin]

If your calculations were accurate, that would be great news, but unfortunately, they won't quite stack up. If you'll notice, the GF2 Ti200s are beating the GF4MX 460 in that bench in both resolutions, and that's the only bench it does it in. I'd call it a flaky bench at best right now. In a perfect world % of performance gains would be the same across every benchmark, but that isn't quite the case.

 

[vedin]

Oh, and Sunner, the Kyro 1 and 2 weren't totally different cores. Aside from the mystrious 3 million new transistors that noone knows what they do, they are exactly the same chip on a smaller process.

 

[nemesismk2]

<< Oh, and Sunner, the Kyro 1 and 2 weren't totally different cores. Aside from the mystrious 3 million new transistors that noone knows what they do, they are exactly the same chip on a smaller process. >>



You are 100% correct, the Kyro 1 and Kyro 2 are the same. The widely held belief and verified by STM is that the extra transistors were added to achieve the 175mhz running speed of the Kyro 2.

 

[Sunner]

Oups, my bad, got series 2, 3, and 3.1 confused.

 

[Jolt2]

This reminds me of the Rendition video chip manufacturer sale. Rendition was just one step behind 3Dfx in marketing but were the first out with a real 3D video chip. They had a good product but lacked game developer support. To help strenghten their Rendition chip sales and marketing, they looked for a buyer to infuse money into their technology (they were one of the first to demo a T&L chip on a video card, talk of embedded memory in chipset - before BitBoys, etc...). In came Micron, the memory manufacture. This looked like a very good match for the Rendition video chip and the furture embedded memory chipset that was going to take Rendition up the ladder. Well, as we see today, Rendition is no more. They disappeared the same way 3Dfx did, bought up and put to bed.

What is the best is not always the winner. Better technology and ideas come and go. What makes a product better is what consumers perceive as being the best. That perception does not always contain the best technology. Which was better, VHS or Sony beta?

Talk of the Kyro3 and the sale of the chip just reminded me of the Rendition card I still have in my closet. Sorry for rambling on, but vapor-ware is just that - nothing. I seen it before and I am sure I'll see it again.