The Test

Windows 98 SE Test System

Hardware

CPU(s) AMD Athlon-C (Thunderbird) 1.0GHz (133MHz)
Motherboard(s) ASUS A7V133
Memory 128MB PC133 Corsair SDRAM (Micron -7E Chips)
Hard Drive

IBM Deskstar DPTA-372050 20.5GB 7200 RPM Ultra ATA 66

CDROM

Phillips 48X

Video Card(s)

3dfx Voodoo4 5500 AGP 64MB

ATI Radeon 32MB DDR
ATI Radeon 32MB SDR

Hercules/Guillemot 3D Prophet 4500

NVIDIA GeForce2 Ultra 64MB DDR
NVIDIA GeForce2 Pro 64MB DDR
NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS 64MB DDR
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 32MB SDR

Ethernet

Linksys LNE100TX 100Mbit PCI Ethernet Adapter

Software

Operating System

Windows 98 SE

Video Drivers

3dfx Voodoo4 5500 AGP 32MB - v1.04.00

ATI Radeon 32MB SDR - 4.13.7072
ATI Radeon 32MB DDR - 4.13.7072

Hercules/Guillemot 3D Prophet 4500 -

NVIDIA GeForce2 Ultra 64MB DDR - Detonator3 6.50
NVIDIA GeForce2 Pro 64MB DDR - Detonator3 6.50
NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS 64MB DDR - Detonator3 6.50
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 32MB SDR - Detonator3 6.50

Benchmarking Applications

Gaming

idSoftware Quake III Arena demo001.dm3
MDK2 Demo
GT Interactive Unreal Tournament 4.32 Reverend's Thunder Demo
Croteam Serious Sam
Synetic Mercedes-Benz Truck Racing

The Drivers Quake III Arena Performance
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  • MonkeyPaw - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link

    Thanks for the stroll down memory lane (by keeping the article up). I had one of these cards back in 2002, and it was one I looked back upon fondly. I can't remember most of the GPUs I owned from yesteryear, save the Voodoo 3 and the crappy S3 Verge. That's fairly elite company, at least in my brain, anyway. :)
  • xrror - Monday, March 2, 2015 - link

    Yea, it's sad that there wasn't any further development of the Kyro series in the PC market. If I remember right (probably needs fact checked) Imagination's development resources got sucked into the Sega Dreamcast after this point. Even that wouldn't have been so bad if Sega hadn't just given up on the Dreamcast so early on due to a "poor showing in Japan" (nevermind everyone loved it in the US but we didn't count apparently, also see Genesis/MegaDrive).

    I think Imagination or at least their tech lives on in the embedded/mobile space now, but meh - really wanted to see what they could have done with their tech without being shackled to a power budget in 2002-2005 era PC's.
  • Alexvrb - Wednesday, October 14, 2020 - link

    You're wrong. The Dreamcast was designed years earlier using PowerVR Series 2. The later "Kyro series" was based on Series 3. The DC design win netted them some much needed cash which they used to fuel their Series 3 releases. What killed imgtech was their inability to play well with others (board partners) and issues staying on schedule for releases. If they had managed to get the 4800 out the door sooner, and released the larger Kyro III with DDR it would have bought them some time. Especially if they had paired it with a hardware T&L block like Elan.
  • thegreatjombi - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link

    Its very interesting to think that Imagination Technologies could have been another foot note in history (3dfx, bitboys Oy! Rendition..) but going mobile and refining their technology has allowed them to basically become more popular than ATI(AMD) or Nvidia. There are probably more devices in peoples houses running a powervr variant than have an AMD or Nvidia GPU.

    I do wish someone would stick their chip on a discrete card again, they apparently support full Directx and OpenGL! could be an interesting low profile, low end, low power, fanless card for HTPCs.

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