S3 Savage4

Here's the biggest benefit the Savage4 offers outside of S3TC, for the first time ever, low-end users can enjoy the benefits of 32-bit color rendering, without having to experience a performance drop that decreases the playability of the game. The Savage4 is by far the best solution for 32-bit color rendering, even outpacing the TNT2 in terms of performance under Quake 2 at 32-bit rendering. Quake 3 Arena should be an interesting title to play with on the Savage4 as it is supposed to look significantly better in 32-bit color, a setting where the Savage4 starts to compete with the TNT2 quite nicely.

If S3 and id deliver as expected, the combination of a powerful rendering pipeline capable of rendering in 32-bit color with a very small performance drop and S3TC should make Quake 3 Arena extremely playable on lower end systems that end up going with the Savage4. For once, having a lower-end system doesn't mean not being able to play the latest games in the manner they were meant to be played, in the highest quality settings possible.

The Savage4's downfall, and what will keep the solution from making its way up to the hands of the high-end users running Pentium III 500's and soon to be the Pentium III 550's, is its extremely poor scalability. The low clock speed of the Savage4 ends up being the limiting factor after you hit the Pentium II 350/400MHz mark, so unless you plan on overclocking the Savage4, you won't see a huge increase in performance as you start proceeding past the Pentium II 350MHz mark.

Fortunately, the Savage4 Pro core seems to run quite nicely at above 125MHz, in fact, both the Diamond Stealth III 540 and the Gainward Cardexpert SG4 worked fine at 143MHz core, however anything above 143MHz started requiring added cooling (not bad considering this is only using the standard heatsink on both cards).

Unless S3 can release an "Ultra" version of the Savage4 Pro, most high-end system users will be putting their CPUs to waste on the Savage4. If you're on the low end to mid-range of the computing performance spectrum, then the Savage4 suddenly becomes the competitor no one imaged would exist. If anything, the Savage4 is a feel good solution for owners of slower computers (by today's standards), let's see a TNT2 run Quake 2 in 32-bit color with only a 10% drop in performance.

At up to 800 x 600, the Savage4 is definitely in there in terms of competition, however once you hit 1024 x 768 there is a significant drop in performance. The drop is so significant that the performance of the Savage4 drops to levels you wouldn't even expect from the original TNT or the ATI Rage 128. So if you're planning on running at 1024 x 768, don't expect the Savage4 to be the answer to your prayers in terms of high performance at that resolution.

Although the Savage4 does allow for resolutions up to 1600 x 1200, performance at resolutions above 1024 x 768 grows unplayable very quickly. Playing at 1600 x 1200 in Quake 2, or any OpenGL game with Quake 2's complexity won't be fun at all on the Savage4. It must be mentioned that no current accelerator is capable of running at 1600 x 1200 at above 40 fps (under Q2) in its best case scenario on today's CPUs, we'll have to wait until the end of the year for that level of performance.