S3 Savage 2000 (Diamond Viper II)

Testing at 640 x 480 with a next-generation video card provides two pieces of information: (1) relative performance of different CPUs and (2) the quality of the drivers for a particular video card. Here the Savage 2000 (Viper II) remains on the heels of the GeForce 256 (SDR) which is to be expected. The higher fill rate of the Savage 2000 should theoretically put it above the GeForce 256, but the card is beginning to show the limitations of its drivers.

The Savage 2000, in spite of its 155MHz memory clock, managed to outpace the GeForce 256 in the memory bandwidth dependent 32-bit color tests. The reason behind this is because the current Savage 2000 drivers only support a 16-bit Z-Buffer while the GeForce 256 is using a 32-bit Z-Buffer in this test. The 32-bit Z-Buffer used on the GeForce eats up some of that precious memory bandwidth while offering a small improvement in visual quality and thus the Savage 2000 comes out ahead. You can't really penalize S3 here because the sacrifice in visual quality is minimal for a decent gain in performance.

The GeForce architecture is the one limiting factor in that it only supports a 32-bit Z-buffer when running in 32-bit color modes while all of the other cards can choose between 16 and 32-bit Z-buffer modes.

The performance standings remain the same, with the GeForce at the top by a decent margin. With some improving, the Savage 2000's drivers could put the chip on a level closer to that of the GeForce, if not faster than it. The 32-bit color performance of the Savage 2000 is once again considerably higher than the GeForce because of the GeForce's inability to run using a 16-bit Z-buffer in 32-bit color modes.

Once again, the standings remain the same, even at 1024 x 768, with the Savage 2000 noticeably slower than the GeForce 256 in 16-bit color. In fact, the Savage 2000 is only about 5 fps faster than the G400MAX, a "previous generation" card. The 32-bit performance of the Savage 2000 is still above the competition but keep those two scores in mind as you watch the performance of the Savage 2000 on the other three CPUs we tested on. It seems like we're seeing the beginnings of the limits of the Savage 2000. Not a very refreshing thought. However, the performance here is respectable.