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INNO3D XABRE 400 REVIEW

"Inno3D Xabre 400 review comparing the Inno3D Xabre 400 to the Gainward GeForce4 MX440 and Chaintech GeForce4 Ti4200 using an Athlon XP 1700 and Asus A7V266C. Software used for testing is:- 3dmark 2001 SE, Dronez, Max Payne, Quake 3 Arena, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Serious Sam, Star Trek Voyager Elite Force, Unreal Tournament and Unreal Tournament 2003."

INNO3D XABRE 400, 250MHz core clock speed, 64MB 500mhz DDR memory, Pixelize™ Engine pixel shader, Frictionless Memory Controller™ (FMC) and 3rd Generation T&L Engine.

The Xabre™ Family series Graphics Processing Unit is the industry's first AGP8x compliant chipset. By integrating 8X8 design, MotionFixing™, Coloredeemer™ and Pixelizer™ technologies, the Xabre Family GPU chipset is the most high performance, feature rich, cost effective, and highly integrated GPU for the mainstream market. It is the only mainstream GPU to be DirectX8.1 compliant that will allow gamers to enjoy the games with realism.

Xabre™ 400 Features in Depth

Pixelize™ Engine - Xabre™ H/W Pixel Shader that can alter lighting and surface effects of materials and surfaces to mimic reality. The "Pixelizer" engine uses pixel data from a series of input registers, performs operations on the data using an arithmetic logic unit, and outputs the transformed pixel data to the graphics pipeline for further processing. This pixel shader technology brings the quality of objects in every frame to insurmountable heights and can crank 3D-"realism up another notch in certain applications i.e. games, Digital Content Creation etc. Gamers will be able to see more impressive effects, more realistic-looking scenes and more life-like motions in games!!!

Frictionless Memory Control™ (FMC) - The Xabre Family series Graphic Processing Unit integrates Frictionless Memory Control architecture to boost effective memory bandwidth and improve overall memory efficiency. Basically, this means even faster and smoother frame rates when running heavy applications such as games.

Jitter-Free Anti-Aliasing - Mindboggling hyper-insane image performance and quality without worries on those dreaded "jaggies" without slowing your computer down. The "Jitter-Free" Antialiasing engine can support 1x, 2x and 4x blur, Oversamping and jitter antialiasing to display the most eye-popping clear images available.

Coloredeemer™ Technology - This is a sweet and simple technology to greatly enhance the color rendering of the display. This provides full-frame rate, full-screen, high quality color enhancement to make objects more vivid and realistic. Seeing is believing!!

MotionFixing™ Video processor - Crystal clear video image is made possible by this eye-catching feature. Supports 4 fields per-pixel motion detection de-interlace function, video sources from MPEG decoder, Video capture and AVI interfaces.

3rd Generation T&L Engine - Supports up to 16 vertex cache and makes you feel like riding on the roller-coaster when highly texture packed application is used.

The Xminator™ XP Unified Driver - Xminator™ XP Unified Driver optimizes both DirectX8.1 and OpenGL 1.3 for WindowsRXP platform, and driver you with best.

CubicLook™ Utility - The CubicLook™ utility support wired and wireless stereo glass, AGP driver detection and over-clock function

Double Scene™ Technology - Companion with SiS301,Support LCD+CRT, CRT+CRT,CRT+TV dual view function to enlarge your view with ease

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

AGP 8X,4X - AGP3.0 compliant (Xabre 400, 200)
AGP 4X/2X (Xabre 80)
Support hardware auto detect for AGP1.0,AGP 2.0,or AGP3.0 mode support

High Performance & High Quality 3D Accelerator
Built-in a high quality 3D engine
Support DirectX 8.1 Pixel Shader ver. 1.3
Support Bump Mapping, Cubic Mapping and Volume Texture
Supports 2X/4X full scene anti-aliasing
Built-in high performance VLIW T&L engine
Support OpenGL two side light
Support OpenGL primary and secondary color merging

2D Acceleration Features
Built-in hardware command queue
Built-in Direct Draw Accelerator
Built-in GDI 2000 Accelerator
Maximum 128 MB frame buffer with linear addressing
Supports AGP8X 533 MHz data read for all 2D engine functions

MotionFixing™ Video Processor
Supports 4 fields per-pixel motion detection de-interlace
Video sources from MPEG decoder and Video capture.
Supports down scaling function and scaling vector as 1/2, 1/4
Supports de-interlaced and 1/2 down scaling function

MPEG 2/1 Video decoder
Motion Compensation layer decoding architecture
Supports up to 20 M bit/sec bit rate decoding
Supports VCD, DVD and HDTV decoding

Xminator™ XP Unified driver
Optimizes both Direct X 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3 for Windows XP /Windows 9X/Windows 2000

NAME	CHIPSET	GPU SPEED	MEMORY	UK PRICE	US PRICE
INNO3D XABRE 400	Xabre	250mhz	64mb 500MHz DDR	£55	$86
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440	Nv17	270mhz	64Mb 400mhz DDR	£58	$90
CHAINTECH GEFORCE4 Ti4200	Nv25	250mhz	128mb 444mhz DDR	£108	$139

GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION

PROCESSOR	AMD ATHLON XP 1700
VIDEO CARD	INNO3D XABRE 400
	GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440
	CHAINTECH GEFORCE4 TI4200
SIS DRIVER	XMINATOR™ UNIFIED DRIVER v3.07.55
NVIDIA DRIVER	DETONATOR v40.72
MOTHERBOARD	ASUS A7V266-C
MEMORY	CRUCIAL 512MB DDR
OPERATING SYSTEM	WINDOWS 98 SE
DIRECTX VERSION	v8.1

3DMARK 2001 SE	INNO3D XABRE 400	GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440	CHAINTECH GEFORCE4 TI4200
3DMARK	6739	5768	9508
GAME 1 - CAR CHASE - LOW DETAIL	121 fps	103 fps	141 fps
GAME 1 - CAR CHASE - HIGH DETAIL	41 fps	41 fps	47 fps
GAME 2 - DRAGOTHIC - LOW DETAIL	103 fps	100 fps	164 fps
GAME 2 - DRAGOTHIC - HIGH DETAIL	63 fps	46 fps	94 fps
GAME 3 - LOBBY - LOW DETAIL	103 fps	99 fps	127 fps
GAME 3 - LOBBY - HIGH DETAIL	50 fps	49 fps	58 fps
GAME 4 - NATURE	18 fps	N/A	59 fps
FILL RATE (SINGLE-TEXTURING)	448 mtexels/s	440 mtexels/s	811 mtexels/s
FILL RATE (MULTI-TEXTURING)	917 mtexels/s	840 mtexels/s	1894 mtexels/s
HIGH POLYGON COUNT (1 LIGHT)	25 mtriangles/s	29 mtriangles/s	44 mtriangles/s
HIGH POLYGON COUNT (8 LIGHTS)	7 mtriangles/s	6 mtriangles/s	10 mtriangles/s
ENVIROMENT BUMP MAPPING	33 fps	N/A	123 fps
DOT3 BUMP MAPPING	77 fps	66 fps	115 fps
VERTEX SHADER	53 fps	46 fps	81 fps
PIXEL SHADER	25 fps	N/A	100 fps
ADVANCED PIXEL SHADER	15 fps	N/A	22 fps
POINT SPRITES	7 msprites/s	9 msprites/s	23 msprites/s

COMMENT - "The Inno3D Xabre 400 starts off strongly beating the Gainward GeForce4 MX440 in all four of the game tests using low and high detail, these are the tests which count towards the final score and are therefore the most important. The Gainward GeForce4 MX440 doesn't support the nature, enviroment bump mapping, pixel shader and advanced pixel shader test. The Inno3D Xabre 400 however was able to complete ALL of the tests available which is very impressive for a budget video card costing only £55 ($86)"

FINAL GAME RESULT

DRONEZ

	123
	145
	168

MAX PAYNE

	64
	78
	100

QUAKE 3 ARENA

	106
	142
	193

RETURN TO CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN

	59
	89
	108

SERIOUS SAM

	61
	67
	101

STAR TREK VOYAGER ELITE FORCE

	95
	110
	143

UNREAL TOURNAMENT

	69
	109
	114

UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003

	58
	88
	144

INNO3D XABRE 400 GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440
CHAINTECH GEFORCE4 TI4200

COMMENT - "The performance of the Inno3D Xabre 400 and the Gainward GeForce4 MX440 are close when using games as benchmarks. The Inno3D Xabre 400 Return to Castle Wolfenstein result is lower than it should be because the smoke caused a large performance decrease, hopefully this can be fixed in the next driver release. Even though the Gainward GeForce4 MX440 won most of the results it's not a terrible result for the Inno3D Xabre 400. The Gainward GeForce4 MX440 performs very well with DX7 games like most of the games featured above so the result isn't a shock. The advantage of the Inno3D Xabre 400 is it's pixel shaders which will mean that when games become available which require that feature the Inno3D Xabre 400 already has them unlike the Gainward GeForce4 MX440. The Chaintech GeForce4 Ti4200 performed as expected and delivered over 100fps in all of the games."

CONCLUSION

GOOD POINTS
• DX 8.1 features make this video card more future proof than the GF4 MX440.
• All of the games tested delivered playable performance with no instability.
• The Xabre can complete every 3dmark test due to it's hardware pixel shaders.
• Great quality 2D display even at very high resolutions.
• DVI-I adapter included.

BAD POINTS
• Poor full screen antialiasing image quality and performance.
• Smoke causes slowdown in Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
• No anisotropic filtering support.

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