XGI Volari 8300 Launch!

[Avalon]

Just thought this was news, so I'd share with everyone. At this time, no cards are available for purchase, as I think XGI intended to hard launch in China first, and have cards appear here later on.

OCworkbench has a review up on the card that explains what it is and what it's intended for.

Text

What I'm interested in seeing is a working 8600 or 8900 (non duo or duo). Unfortunately, they are going to be so late to the game by the time they arrive.

 

[Soccerman06]

Who cares?

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: Soccerman06
Who cares?

Does it matter? I can post whatever news I'd like.
This card looks great for the non-gamer, given the features it has. Many people might care when they take a look.

Go troll somewhere else.

 

[nitromullet]

I care. I was all over the Volari V8 duo, but it turned out to be a disappointment. Still, one of the coolest disappointments in recent video card history, the FX 5800 Ultra had nothing on the V8 duo. The V8 duo was noisy, hot, huge, had two chips, and it sucked, I mean it SUCKED (like a hot, huge, dual chip FX 5200). That being said, I'm still interested to see them make some headway, even if it isn't in the gaming market. Let them develop a market that allows them to turn a bit of a profit. I guarantee you that if they can make some money, they will make another attempt at the gaming market. I'd love to see a third player - that's exactly what we need.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

hmmm looks rather similar to the physx PPU cards

and it seems their video playback is actually rather good

 

[mwmorph]

hmm yjey seem to have got their facts wrong.they state RS482 as X300? it's a X200. They state a NVidia GF6150 is a 6200? no it's a 6150 hence the name. Also the comparisons are only against the x300(aka a x200) and no 6150 image quality comparisons. Also the images were taken at different times so the 2 pictures comparing ati and XGi are different.

the review is pretty subpar. 3/10 for trying at least.

 

[nRollo]

I'd like to see XGI put out at least a mid range card, better yet a high end card. Back in the day, there more choices. We didn't just have nVidia or ATI, there was 3DFX, Rendition, PowerVR, and S3 to consider for gaming cards.

I used to wait for the CGW annual video card issue like Christmas. (and buy most of the cards!)

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: Rollo
I'd like to see XGI put out at least a mid range card, better yet a high end card. Back in the day, there more choices. We didn't just have nVidia or ATI, there was 3DFX, Rendition, PowerVR, and S3 to consider for gaming cards.

I used to wait for the CGW annual video card issue like Christmas. (and buy most of the cards!)

I doubt they'd bother coming up with a mid-range card. Their last card with gaming pretentions was so extremely bad I thought the company would've gone out of business by now.

Video/HDTV decoding is probably what it does best like S3/Trident.

 

[rbV5]

That was a piss poor look at the video playback. How could you draw anything from that? Power DVD cpu utilization was provided by XGI? No look at any other formats, and no real comparison of even DVD playback. The screenshots "the differences of playback of video using X300 versus Volari 8300"...cmon:roll:

 

[Budarow]

Originally posted by: Rollo
I used to wait for the CGW annual video card issue like Christmas.

Same here...I used to make copies of the charts so I could add comments (without messing up my mag) and plan for my next upgrade

 

[NokiaDude]

I bet the V8 Duo would've kicked ass if the drivers were not as bad as they were. Who makes their drivers? Most likely it's monkeys in asia.

 

[phaxmohdem]

Its kind of dissapointing to see graphics card companies like XGI and Matrox,with lots of potential just sitting by the wayside, catering to small niche markets. HOwever keeping up with AT/nVidia's insane 6 month generation cylce would be pretty taxing on a smaller company with more limited resources.

 

[blckgrffn]

Thanks for the link, Avalon! At least it should be good compared to integrated graphics, hopefully it is ~$60 and gets even a little OEM support, but I doubt ATI or nvidia want that to happen

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: NokiaDude
I bet the V8 Duo would've kicked ass if the drivers were not as bad as they were. Who makes their drivers? Most likely it's monkeys in asia.

I doubt it. The gpu sucked. It was a hot running noisy slow performing card.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/xgi-volari_19.html

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Budarow

Originally posted by: Rollo
I used to wait for the CGW annual video card issue like Christmas.

Same here...I used to make copies of the charts so I could add comments (without messing up my mag) and plan for my next upgrade

How cool were those? You'd have about 15 cards, based on 4-5 chipsets, benched against each other?

I used to read that and Computer Shopper like they were the bible.

For young readers- we didn't really have etailers like newegg back in the day, we had the Computer Shopper, which was like a monthly catalog of what would become etailers price lists. When I think of the hours I used to waste poring over hardware ads, LOL, I'm surprised my wife is still with me.

 

[Peter]

XGI and S3, while regularly having a stab at producing a decent discrete graphics chip, exist mostly as satellites to chipset companies (SiS and VIA, respectively) who have been pulling the previous-generation graphics engines into core chipsets.

For example, S3 DeltaChrome barely made a dent in the graphics card business, but now sees its reincarnation inside the latest VIA chipsets. SiS have yet to use something newer than the Xabre core (from back when XGI wasn't even a separate company yet) in theirs, but have a long standing history of doing exactly that - from their very first "200" 2D graphics chip over their first 3D part "6326" all the way up to the "330" Xabre, every single graphics chip they made popped back up inside a chipset one generation later.

To stay on topic, a discrete graphics chip that hardly does any better than your average chipset integrated unit is just as pathetic as it is pointless. IMHO.

 

[Avalon]

I only posted the OCworkbench review because it's the only review on the card I could find. Like I said, I intended it to be for explaining what the card is, and for that reason only. I never said it was a great review.

At the moment, XGI seems to be working on low profile, low noise/heat cards on the cheap. Which explains their Volari 8300, and their push for integrated GPU developement. However, they have not given up on the gaming market, and do have a few new lines of cards in the works.

My guess is that they will be a full generation behind ATI and Nvidia as far as performance goes, but will have the current feature set that ATI and Nvidia will have at the time. XGI seems very adamant about supporting all the latest features, and are really pushing the whole home entertainment theme.

Their gamer cards being worked on are the 8600(XG45), 8900(XG50), and XG60.
The only thing I know about the 8600 is that it is supposed to perform around the same as a Geforce 6600 and be out around mid 2006. It's supposed to be a 90nm GPU that runs on a 192bit memory bus.

The 8900 I have very little info on. My guess is that XGI will scrap the XG50 and release their XG60 instead at the end of 2006, which is supposed to be a 16 pixel pipeline card utilizing GDDR4.

 

[Avalon]

To stay on topic, a discrete graphics chip that hardly does any better than your average chipset integrated unit is just as pathetic as it is pointless. IMHO.[/quote]

Why is it pointless? This isn't about gaming power.

 

[bersl2]

Originally posted by: NokiaDude
I bet the V8 Duo would've kicked ass if the drivers were not as bad as they were. Who makes their drivers? Most likely it's monkeys in asia.

Rumors about a full Linux driver source release from XGI are beginning again. Fully documenting their chipset would give them momentum, no matter how ass-tacular the hardware might be.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: Avalon
To stay on topic, a discrete graphics chip that hardly does any better than your average chipset integrated unit is just as pathetic as it is pointless. IMHO.

Why is it pointless? This isn't about gaming power.[/quote]

So then what? The current breed of chipset-integrated graphics do everything else just as fine - including HDTV output, highres DVI, and high quality video processing.

 

[blckgrffn]

Have you ever used nvidia or ATI to output to a HDTV monitor? They both still have some rather large and annoying limitations. If this card and drivers can specifically do that and do it well, there is now doubt it will find its way into my media box that NEVER plays games.

Nat

 

[Peter]

By the time these will hit the shelves - if they ever do - you might just as well take a VIA chipset with integrated Deltachrome graphics, and save those $60 as well as the noise from the extra fan.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: Peter
By the time these will hit the shelves - if they ever do - you might just as well take a VIA chipset with integrated Deltachrome graphics, and save those $60 as well as the noise from the extra fan.

Would you rather XGI not even try, and fold over?
*Edit*
The card is supposed to retail for under $50 USD MSRP.
Should easily run passively as well.

 

[Peter]

Of course I don't want them to close shop.

The point here is that with those performance numbers, they're missing the price point of the market that would want one. $50USD buys an entire mainboard, complete with integrated graphics ... meaning that you won't see an XGI card in a $299 PC - and for a $399 PC, there's alternatives that are many times faster.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: Peter
Of course I don't want them to close shop.

The point here is that with those performance numbers, they're missing the price point of the market that would want one. $50USD buys an entire mainboard, complete with integrated graphics ... meaning that you won't see an XGI card in a $299 PC - and for a $399 PC, there's alternatives that are many times faster.

Well, hopefully this is why they are making the IGP push. The chip would do well integrated.

*Edit*
This may be a little OT, but...Peter, I rarely see you post in the video forums. What brings you to this thread, if you don't mind my asking?