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From: rcpt@rw8.urc.tue.nl (Piet Tutelaers)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: 45 graphic cards tested for MSWindows
Message-ID: <rcpt.731543293@rw8.urc.tue.nl>
Date: 7 Mar 93 22:28:13 GMT
Sender: news@tuegate.tue.nl
Reply-To: rcpt@urc.tue.nl
Lines: 75
In the german magazine `PC Professionell' (3/93) 45 graphic cards are
compared. Among the cards that show up a good performance in 1024x768
and 256 colors for MSWindows are:
card chipset video bus refresh Winmark price
memory type rate
(Hz) (x 10^6) (DM)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hercules Graphite IIT/X14 VRAM ISA 80 19.3 795
Elsa Winner 1000 S3/P86C928 VRAM ISA 76 15.3 1046
VRAM EISA 76 16.7 ?
STB Power Graph S3/P86C801 DRAM ISA 70 11.0 459
In the same test the Elsa Winner's VLB (VESA Local Bus) version and the
Orchid Fahrenheit VA/VLB card are compared to the Elsa Winner ISA
version:
card chipset video bus refresh Winmark price
memory type rate
(Hz) (x 10^6) (DM)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Elsa Winner 1000 S3/P86C928 VRAM ISA 76 16.9 ?
VRAM VLB 76 17.7 ?
Orchid Fahr. VA/VLB S3/P86C801 DRAM VLB 70 11.4 679
And there is also a comparision based upon the processor speed:
card processor chipset video bus refresh Winmark
memory type rate
(Hz) (x 10^6)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Elsa Winner 1000 386SX-20 S3/P86C928 VRAM ISA 76 5.2
386DX-40 6.4
486DX-33 16.7
486DX-66 15.6
WD Paradise 386SX-20 WD/90C31 DRAM ISA 72 1.4
(398,- DM) 386DX-40 1.6
486DX-33 3.1
486DX-66 3.1
ET4000 (type?) 386SX-20 ET4000 DRAM ISA ? 0.9
386DX-40 1.0
486DX-33 2.2
486DX-66 2.1
>From the last two tables you can conclude:
1) the window performance gain from VLB versus ISA is only marginal for
S3 cards
2) the window performance gain from 386 towards 486 is significant!
3) there is no window performance gain from 486DX-33 towards 486DX-66
Unfortunately XFree86-1.2 does not run on most of the mentioned cards.
But if we have the choice between an ET4000/VLB, ET4000/VRAM (Sigma
Legend II seems the only available one) or ET4000/ISA what do we choose?
Or are there faster cards for XFree86-1.2 than the ET4000? Who can fill
in next table for 1024x768 at 256 colors or part of it?
card processor chipset video bus refresh Xstones Price
memory type rate
(Hz) (x 10^3) (DM)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
<your brand> 386SX-20 ET4000 DRAM ISA 70
386DX-40
486DX-33
486DX-66
Sigma Legend II 486DX-33 ET4000 VRAM ISA 70 300
<your brand>/VLB 486DX-33 ET4000 DRAM VLB 70
<other brand> 486DX-33 <other> ? ? 70
The refresh rate of 70Hz (or better!) is important for 1024x768
non-interlaced monitors but the actual refresh rate can simple be
calculated from the Xconfig config file you use.
--Piet