Why is the KYRO so ignored?

[Caitiff]

I've looked at what few benchmarks there are out there, and this card performs very respectably for the price. Not to mention that it's a good idea to support more competition in the marketplace, now that 3dfx is gone. Am I missing something? None of the review sites show it when the compare 'current' video cards, and the only reviews you see are the pre-release ones from like 8 months ago. What's the deal?

 

[Jethro Bodine]

It's not really a "current" card except in that it's manufactured currently. The level of performance is so low the only real comparable cards to compare it to in a review would be the V4, matrox G450, ATI LE and maybe a GeForce 2 MX.
What good would it do to "compare" it to cards that are twice as fast?

 

[BenSkywalker]

Small manufacturer with limited availability not to mention it never was a high end part. If you look at the boards commonly used in comparisons they are boards that are either "pimped" by one of the big two(formerly three) or one that was at some point a serious performance contender.

The reasons for that, from a journalistic perspective, is that comparing numbers from one board to either a V5, Radeon or GF2 gives people an immediate sense of performance, the Kyro isn't anywhere near as well known and I would say it is rather likely that it isn't known at all to the mainstream public.

Another problem that the Kyro has is the original press boards shipped out of spec compared to shipping parts. They were underclocked and shipped with 64MB of RAM while the retail boards ship with 32MB. The sites that have one of the original press boards would be doing a misservice including scores from a product that differs in two key areas versus the shipping product.

It isn't a bad board at all, though there are factors that would leave as a less then ideal candidate for including in most reviews. Now, if IT can get the KyroII in the press's hands in a timely and complete/shipping fashion this could change for the next round.