iXBT Labs - Computer Hardware in Detail

Platform

Video

Multimedia

Mobile

Other

April 2002 3Digest - SIS 315 128 MBytes



By Andrey Vorobiev

This chip is presented by Joytech Apollo Thrill 3D (SIS 315) 128 MBytes, AGP videocard.

Features:

  • SIS 315 chip, 166 MHz clock rate, 128-bit engine;
  • 128 MBytes SDRAM memory in 8 VData 6ns microchips, 166 MHz clock rate;
  • Peak fill rate in the multitexturing mode is 333 megapixels/sec and 333 megatexels/sec.
  • Hardware TCL.

Overclocking is impossible.

The SIS company is present on the videochip market for a long time. It produces low-end solutions and it has never pretented to the place among popular 3D-accelerators. But the company tried to change the situation with the release of SIS 300/305 cards. Unfortunately, those cards turned out to have bad 3D/2D perfomance, and only low price helped SIS to be afloat.

And now the company releases a new product that may become a competitor of NVIDIA GeForce2 MX200 (like Trident Blade XP). I.e. 3D perfomance of SIS 315 is on the level of NVIDIA Riva TNT2Pro. New cards are designed for the cheap card sector of computer market. I.e. for office needs and also for playing good 3D games. The most attractive feature of a new card is it's price, that's less than the price of NVIDIA GeForce2 MX200 cards. You'll be able to read more about this card in the review. 128 MBytes memory is entirely a marketing step and doesn't do any good to this 3D-accelerator.

For the 10th of April 2002 the latest drivers versions from SIS are 2.04 and 2.05.

Rally Trophy disappointed us. Even lowering quality level very much to get some gameplay you get this horror:

You can compare screenshots taken on this card with reference ones taken on NVIDIA GeForce3.

Games / Cards 1 2 3 4 5 6
SIS 315 -
NVIDIA GeForce3

Games / Cards 7 8 9 10 11 12
SIS 315 -
NVIDIA GeForce3

Games / Cards 13 14 15 16 17 18
SIS 315 -
NVIDIA GeForce3

Games / Cards 19 20 21 22 23 24
SIS 315 - -
NVIDIA GeForce3

Games / Cards 25 26 27 28 29 30
SIS 315 -
NVIDIA GeForce3

Game list:

  • 1. Return to Castle Wolfenstein
  • 2. Unreal2 - for GeForce cards, Unreal - for all other
  • 3. Comanche4
  • 4. No One Lives Forever
  • 5. Serious Sam
  • 6. Colin McRAE Rally2
  • 7. Red Faction
  • 8. Rally Trophy
  • 9. Sacrifice
  • 10. Venom
  • 11. Need For Speed V (Porshe 2000)
  • 12. Real MYST
  • 13. Blade of Darkness
  • 14. Giants
  • 15. 3DMark2001: Game1
  • 16. 3DMark2001: Game2
  • 17. 3DMark2001: Game3
  • 18. 3DMark2001: Game4
  • 19. 3DMark2001: Dot3
  • 20. 3DMark2001: EMBM
  • 21. 3DMark2001: Vertex Shaders
  • 22. 3DMark2001: Pixel Shaders
  • 23. Black & White
  • 24. Undying
  • 25. Command and Conquer: Renegade
  • 26. Max Payne
  • 27. AquaNox
  • 28. Serious Sam II
  • 29. IL2: Shturmovik
  • 30. MoHAA

2D quality is satisfactory, on the level of S3 Savage2000.

Article navigation:



blog comments powered by Disqus

  Most Popular Reviews More    RSS  

AMD Phenom II X4 955, Phenom II X4 960T, Phenom II X6 1075T, and Intel Pentium G2120, Core i3-3220, Core i5-3330 Processors

Comparing old, cheap solutions from AMD with new, budget offerings from Intel.
February 1, 2013 · Processor Roundups

Inno3D GeForce GTX 670 iChill, Inno3D GeForce GTX 660 Ti Graphics Cards

A couple of mid-range adapters with original cooling systems.
January 30, 2013 · Video cards: NVIDIA GPUs

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1

An external X-Fi solution in tests.
September 9, 2008 · Sound Cards

AMD FX-8350 Processor

The first worthwhile Piledriver CPU.
September 11, 2012 · Processors: AMD

Consumed Power, Energy Consumption: Ivy Bridge vs. Sandy Bridge

Trying out the new method.
September 18, 2012 · Processors: Intel
  Latest Reviews More    RSS  

i3DSpeed, September 2013

Retested all graphics cards with the new drivers.
Oct 18, 2013 · 3Digests

i3DSpeed, August 2013

Added new benchmarks: BioShock Infinite and Metro: Last Light.
Sep 06, 2013 · 3Digests

i3DSpeed, July 2013

Added the test results of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 and AMD Radeon HD 7730.
Aug 05, 2013 · 3Digests

Gainward GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST 2GB Golden Sample Graphics Card

An excellent hybrid of GeForce GTX 650 Ti and GeForce GTX 660.
Jun 24, 2013 · Video cards: NVIDIA GPUs

i3DSpeed, May 2013

Added the test results of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770/780.
Jun 03, 2013 · 3Digests
  Latest News More    RSS  

Platform  ·  Video  ·  Multimedia  ·  Mobile  ·  Other  ||  About us & Privacy policy  ·  Twitter  ·  Facebook


Copyright © Byrds Research & Publishing, Ltd., 1997–2011. All rights reserved.