Memory components used on the Wildcat VP990 are Samsung -B3 (166 MHz CL2.5) DDR 16M x 16 (256 Mbit). Click for larger image.
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| 3DLabs Wildcat VP990 512 MB LFB but... Whatever Happened to the Specs | |
| (Review by MS, August 1, 2003) |
Some Technical Specs
3Dlabs are rather secretive about some of the technical specs of their cards, neither core engine nor memory frequency are disclosed. In any event, here are the data that are available:
| Transistor count: | 76 Million |
| Manufacturing Processs: | 150 nm TSMC process |
| Onboard memory: | 512 MB DDR |
| Memory interface: | 256 bit bus |
| Geometry Performance: | 225 MVertices/sec |
| Raw GPU Power: | 200Gflops/sec / 1.2 TeraOp VPU |
| Memory Bandwidth: | > 20 GB/sec |
| RAMDAC: | dual 370 MHz 10 bit RAMDAC |
| API Support: | OpenGL with shader extensions OpenGL 2.0 (future versions) DX 8.1 with Vertex Shader 1.1 and Pixel Shader 1.2 |
More details here (including a number of typographical and clerical errors).
As shown above, the memory bandwidth claimed is 20 GB/sec, which, on a 256 bit DDR interface translates into 312 MHz memory clock or 625 Mbps. (256 / 8 x 625 MHz = 20,000 MB/sec). The interesting aspect of this is the fact that the memory components used on the Wildcat are Samsung 16Mx16, - B3 rated, that is, 166 MHz at CL-2.5. When we originally looked at Powerstrip, we found that the memory frequency was shown as 150 MHz, that is, the memory was not even running at the speed at which the components are rated.
Memory components used on the Wildcat VP990 are Samsung -B3 (166 MHz CL2.5) DDR 16M x 16 (256 Mbit). Click for larger image.
Granted, there is a possibility for Powerstrip to show incorrect frequencies, however, the frequency sliders for core and memory were functional as we found that the highest memory frequency we could obtain without the system freezing was ~170 MHz. The core frequency was shown at 281 MHz.
If we take these numbers and do the math, we end up with a theoretical 300 x 256 / 8 or 9.6 GByte/sec memory bandwidth. The peak fill rate based on a core clock of 280 MHz and four pipes is 1120 Mtexels / sec.
Two Screenshots from Final Reality 1.01 showing incomplete texture application to the point where the face of Max Payne is no longer recognisable. Click for larger pictures
Theory is theory, and it is rather gray, but how do these numbers translate into real life performance? In this case, the choice of benchmarks proved extremely difficult since the Wildcat VP990 is not a gaming card and will only show abysmal performance in gaming or gaming-related theoretical benchmarks. Moreover, the actual performance in D3D games was such that most games would be considered unplayable, not because of the actual frame rates but because of some really bad image tearing and incomplete texturing. Interestingly, in OpenGL applications, these issues did not appear, we played a few rounds of MDK2 that showed flawless texturing. Moreover, the artefacts we found in D3D did not occur consistently, in repetitive runs of the same applications they would show at various levels of severity.
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