A-Trend ATC3970A
Savage S4 graphic card

Saturday, August 14, 1999

The performances tests results

All tests were performed with the following system setup:

Motherboard: Abit BX6 revision 2.0
CPU: Intel Pentium III 450mhz
Memory: 64mb PC100 SDram (LGS)
IDE first channel Primary port: Quantum Fireball KA 9.1gig UDMA66
IDE second channel Primary port: Kenwood 52X True X
AGP slot: A-Trend ATC3970A Savage S4
PCI slot number 4: Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live Value
ISA slot number 2: US Robotic 56k X2 modem
OS: Win98 4.10
DirectX 6.1

Note: The Abit Soft Menu II Turbo mode was enabled for all tests.

All tests were performed with the VSYNC disabled unless otherwise specified.



The Drivers & Testing conditions

The default operating frequency settings for this graphic card are a core frequency of 110Mhz and a memory frequency of 125Mhz. The drivers used were those included on the CD.

The ELSA ERAZOR II results displayed are those obtained with the drivers included on the installation CD

The ELSA ERAZOR III results displayed are those obtained with the drivers version 4.1.01.0109

The Viper V550 and Velocity 4400 were both using the Nvidia reference drivers built 188

The Gigabyte GA-630 Voodoo Banshee was using the installation CD drivers

The ATI Rage Fury was using drivers version 4.11.6060



The 2D results

Winbench99 Business Graphic Winmark

As we can se here, the Savage S4 based card is scoring above all TNT based graphic card and almost as good as the ELSA ERAZOR III TNT2 graphic card.



The 3D results

As it can be observed in the above 3D tests results, the Savage S4 graphic card is much better than a Voodoo Banshee graphic card and is almost reaching the performance level of TNT's graphic cards. However, it is a tad far from a TNT2 graphic card.


Quake2 version3.20 Timedemo testing procedure used:

  • The computer has been freshly booted
  • Quake 2 (3.20) has been launched
  • The video console has been opened
  • The appropriate screen resolution has been selected
  • The game console as been opened by typing " ~ "
  • Once in the console I typed "Timedemo 1" and "Enter"
  • The command "demomap demo2.dm2" or "map crusher.dm2" has been typed
  • Once the demo has completed, I used to type again "demomap demo2.dm2" to run it another shot


    All Quake2 tests were performed 3 times each and the mean
    of the results obtained is the one displayed in the above tests results.

    3D Mark 99


    Once again, the A-Trend Savage S4 graphic card is outperformed by the TNT2 graphic cards but this is not a great surprise as we were all expecting such a results, didn't we?



    Conclusions

    The A-Trend ATC3970A Savage S4 graphic card is a tad deceiving in terms of performance especially when compared against TNT2 graphic cards. However, the ST3C texture compression of this graphic card is something that no other non S3 graphic card is featuring and this is a great advantage for all the Savage S4 based graphic card as this type of graphic card can deliver a level of details that no other TNT or Voodoo graphic card can achieve or can even come close to. Thus, the choice is yours, you go for some more FPS or you go for nicer graphics but in all case it looks like the perfect card is not born yet...


    For any additional information, please visit A-Trend web site.