Bij Tresh's FiringSquad is een uitgebreide preview te vinden van de STMicro Kyro, de videochipset die voorheen bekend was onder de naam PowerVR3. Door de nieuwe tiled based rendering techniek van STM hopen zij een snelle kaart te maken. Zoals de meesten onderhand al weten, worden door deze techniek alleen de zichtbare delen van een 3D-beeld berekend. Ondanks zijn laag geklokte snelheid (125 MHz) kan de kaart toch aardig meekomen met de GeForce2 GTS en de Voodoo5.
One has to wonder why other graphics companies haven't used tile based rendering. Look at the numbers here. This card is clocked at 125 MHz and only has a two pixel pipeline. The vanilla TNT2 has the same number of pixel pipelines and has a higher clock speed. If the KYRO were using conventional rendering methods it wouldn't stand a chance. Imagine having a TNT2 going up against the GeForce 2 and Voodoo 5… like a child playing in traffic.
The MSRP for the 32MB card will be under $200, and there will also be a slightly more expensive 64 MB version. MSRP is generally higher than normal retail price. We guess that you'll be able to find the KYRO for around $150. The card looks like a promising value buy considering it has all the new features like FSAA and environmental bump mapping.
This is by no means a complete deal yet. There is room for improvement in the driver set. Performance wise, we will have comparison numbers against the DDR and SDR up soon to give a better example of where this card stands. FSAA numbers on 3Dmark 2000 will also be provided.