Ook Sharky Extreme heeft een preview van de S3 Savage2000 gepost. Hier heb je een stukje over de T&L features van deze kaart:
S3TL is supposed to be three times more efficient than a CPU at this particular number crunching stage, which begs the question of how both Intel and AMD will respond? They certainly can't be overly 'thrilled' that 3D chip manufacturers are 'off-loading' from the CPU, thus making the need to upgrade the CPU not as necessary. The more efficient Savage 2000 S3TL will then enable, according to S3, four to ten times the amount of polygons and lighting complexity via Direct X7 and OpenGL implementation.From our conversations with S3, it became apparent that they are going to be taking a slightly less aggressive stance on T&L in comparison to NVIDIA. They feel that the games industry needs some time to 'adopt' T&L efficiently. Indeed once this happens, game developers will not only be able to use more polygons and lights (up to 8 dynamic lights!) but in addition, these freed-up CPU processor cycles can then be used for AI, collision detection, physics, etc.. In the rush to adopt 3D graphics, game developer's attention to these features has lagged behind so it could turn out to be another plus for getting more depth into games, not just pretty pictures.
Volgens Sharky gaat de Savage2000 in oktober in massa produktie. De prijs van een Savage2000 plankje zal afhankelijk van het model naar verwachting tussen de 169 en 250 dollar bedragen.
