Diamond Stealth III S540 Xtreme Review — THG.RU

Introduction

After all the hype of the upcoming «high-end» graphics cards, we feel that we should also look into the important area of the low and medium ranged graphic boards. Not everyone can afford the higher price tag on most of the big performers out in the market right now so we felt it was time to bring you word of one of the new players in the price/performance oriented market. The main competitors of the S540 Xtreme in my opinion are NVIDIA M64 based cards, i752 graphics boards, Voodoo3 2000, and products with the ATI Rage 128 chip. We also included the results of some of the more expensive top dogs into the review to provide an idea where the performance of these medium range graphics boards sit.

What’s so cool about the S540 Xtreme?

Most of us are familiar with Savage4 based graphics products. We talked about the Diamond Stealth III S540 in our huge «32 Graphic Card Meltdown — Part One» and «Part Two». Basically, the only difference between the S540 and the S540 Xtreme is the core & memory clocks.

How much does the 41MHz increase to the Savage4 core clock and the additional 23MHz frequency in the memory clock affect performance? Let’s look at our game benchmark test suite and find out. Even though the core clock has changed the temperature of the graphics chip isn’t affected much. We measured only a 4C difference between the S540 and S540 Xtreme. The S540 measured 64C while the S540 Extreme’s temperature hit 68C.

Hardware & Software Settings

How does this board perform?

We decided to put the Diamond Stealth III S540 Xtreme through our standard suite of graphics tests. Shogo, Quake 3 Arena Test, Expendable Demo and Descent III were all ran on each of the boards. Our results include resolutions at 640×480 and 1024×768. These two resolutions were run at both 16bit and 32bit (when supported by the graphics board). Even though the S540 Xtreme and some of the other competitors are targeted towards the lower end of the market, we included the 32bit modes so we could see where the performance of these boards falls off.

The S540 Xtreme provides an efficient frame rate at this resolution. However, the ATI Rage 128, ASUS Magic M64 and Voodoo3 2000 low-end boards provided even higher scores.

Shogo 1024x768x16 Fortress

The Xtreme board is left behind at 1024x768x16 resolution. At 23.2FPS the board doesn’t quite hit the 30FPS that we feel is playable. The next fastest competitor, ASUS Magic M64, provides a 7FPS advantage.

Demo 640x480x16

Again, although the Xtreme’s 51.7FPS score is definitely playable, it is still behind the competition.

Expendable Demo 1028x768x16

Still behind its competition, the Xtreme hits the magic 30FPS that we believe makes playing Expendable at 1024x768x16 bearable.

Expendable Demo 640x480x32

The ATI Rage 128 takes a huge lead at 640x480x32! Even though the competition provides playable frame rates the ATI board smokes the Xtreme by over 20FPS. The Voodoo3 and i752 based boards do not support 32bit 3D; therefore there are no results for them.

Expendable Demo 1028x768x32

At 1024x768x32 neither the Xtreme nor the ASUS Magic M64 boards cut the mustard. ATI takes on this resolution and provides a playable frame rate of 37.1FPS. The Voodoo3 and i752 based boards do not support 32bit 3D; therefore there are no results for them.

Descent 3 640x480x16 DX6

Looking at this chart you are probably wondering why the Voodoo3 2000 is absolutely laughing at its competition. The answer is simple; all of the Voodoo3 based boards results are using their special Glide driver. It is interesting that none of the Voodoo3’s would run in DX6 modes. Looks like they focused their efforts on the Glide mode of this game. With regards to the results, the ASUS Magic M64 board scores a distant 2nd with 93.6FPS. All of the rest of the competition provides plenty of extra frames beyond our required 30FPS.

Descent 3 1024x768x16 DX6

Almost, but not quite, the Xtreme board falls just a tiny short of the playable 30FPS mark. The rest of its competition has no problems.

Descent 3 640x480x16 OpenGL

I find it interesting that the Xtreme board doesn’t score as well in the OpenGL mode of this game. Especially, given the great scores it receives in Quake 3 Arena. The ASUS Magic M64 does better in the OpenGL mode vs. its DX6 scores. Again, the Voodoo3 boards can’t be beat when running in Glide mode.

Descent 3 1024x768x16 OpenGL

At 1024x768x16 neither of the Savage4 based products can provide reasonable framterates. Another reason to use the DX6 mode when using the S540 and S540 Xtreme products. Again, the Voodoo3 boards can’t be beat when running in Glide mode.

Quake 3 Arena Test 640x480x16

Looking at the Quake 3 Arena Test, the Xtreme board does surprisingly well tying the ASUS Magic M64 at 69.4FPS. All of the other competitors also turn in some descent frame rates.

Quake 3 Arena Test 1024x768x16

At 1024x768x16 the Xtreme board makes itself playable at 32.9FPS. Both the ASUS Magic 64 and Voodoo3 2000 provide the highest scores.

Quake 3 Arena Test 640x480x32

The Xtreme board is looking pretty good in compared to its competition at 640x480x32. Although most of these boards provided acceptable frame rates, the Xtreme board was 10FPS faster coming close to the Creative Labs higher-end TNT2.

The Voodoo3 and i752 based boards do not support 32bit 3D; therefore there are no results for them.

Quake 3 Arena Test 1024x768x32

None of the lower-end boards liked Quake 3 Arena at 1024x768x32. Even though the Xtreme didn’t hit the 30FPS mark it did outperform its competition. The Voodoo3 and i752 based boards do not support 32bit 3D; therefore there are no results for them.

Summary

For users who primarily use their system for Internet browsing, email, word-processing or the occasional game the Diamond Stealth III S540 Xtreme fits the bill. At 640x480x16 the S540 Xtreme board provides very playable frame rates above 30FPS in all of our tested games. If you are an avid game player who enjoys playing 3D games at resolutions above 640x480x16 and have the cash, then this isn’t the board for you, go spend the money on a higher-end more expensive board.

There is plenty of competition in the low-end 3D graphics arena. For a $99 solution (S540 Xtreme will be sold for $129 minus a $30 rebate) it’s competition in terms of price/performance will be the VD3 2000, ASUS Magic M64 and ATI Rage 128.

The S540 Xtreme loses to most of its competitors across the board in all our game benchmarks excluding Quake 3 Arena and some of the 32bit tests. But each of these lower-end boards including the Xtreme product provides playable (30FPS or greater) gaming at the lower 640x480x16 resolution. The S540 Xtreme is not going to blow your mind but the board will «put out» at lower resolutions. The only other drawbacks that we’ve encountered were driver issues in a select few applications. You can check out these issues in our «32 Graphic Card Meltdown — Part Two» article. For some people these issues are bad enough where a petition has been created on the net about it «Petition» . All in all though, we still think the S540 Xtreme has its place for the economy 3D gamer.