Savage2000 Time!

A little tech background

S3 introduced the Savage3D chip back in May of 98. It was a solid design, but driver troubles and competition from the technologically superior Voodoo 2 and TNT delegated the Savage3D to the low end. For the next generation of 3D accelerators, S3 shrunk down the Savage3D and added a second texture cache to create the Savage4. Like the Savage3D, the Savage4 (including the Pro and Pro+ iterations) couldn't compete with the high-end Voodoo 3 and TNT2, the next generation offerings from 3dfx and Nvidia, but S3 was more than happy to lock in the low-end OEM market.

S3 could guarantee the volume that OEM manufacturers need. In the OEM market, volume is just as important as technology. Sure, you might have the fastest chip around, but you'll have a hard time making deals if you can't produce enough chips to ensure that an OEM manufacturer will be able to satisfy all of their customers. AMD is currently having trouble making Athlon OEM deals because manufacturers are questioning the Sunnyvale chipmaker's ability to deliver.

S3 wants to have a product for the entire graphics market, top to bottom. They have products for the low-end entry-level systems, the volume mainstream market, and the mobile market, but the High-end performance market was unfilled -until now.

ProjectX?

It's the GX4!

Yes, S3 has finally revealed the specifications for their super-secret GX4 high-end 3D engine. The only thing we knew about the chip was that it had onboard T&L. There were rumors that the GX4 had a dual pixel/dual texture pipeline, and those rumors are now confirmed.

As mentioned before, the GX4 is now known as the Savage2000, but we question S3's decision to attach the Savage name to the chip. After seeing several generations of mid to low range Savage-based boards, we'll have a hard time associating the Savage name with a high-end performance card. Maybe S3 feels that they've invested too much into the Savage brand to just let it go. Then again, Intel was able to make the Celeron name respectable after the original cacheless Celerons marred the name.

Whatever you call it, you can't deny that the Savage2000 is truly a next generation chip. It doubles the performance of all the top of the line cards currently on the market.