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Closer Inspection of the Stealth S80 |
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Stealth technology revealed |
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CLICK ANY IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGED VIEW
The Stealth S80 is a
lean, clean, graphics machine devoid of large
heatsinks and using a relatively uncluttered PCB. Backed by
an ATi-typical red PCB, there are no distinguishing
markings save for the 'D' logo on the fact of the card.
In fact, a sticker on the back of the card identified
the card simply as an "ATi Radeon 9200SE". The ram
consisted of 5ns TSOP memory chips that Diamond has
clocked at 180MHz. Other than the VPU, RAM, and
three small capacitors, the card is remarkably clean
front and back. External connections are the
standard fare, with VGA, S-Video, and DVI ports allowing
connections to both analog and digital monitors, as well
as TV-sets. It probably comes as no real surprise
that the card does not require any additional power
connections as well, allowing for easier installation
when upgrading.
A
slim, passive heatsink is seated over the VPU, which
should handle the load easily as the core speed is only
humming along at a mere 200MHz.
Removal of the heatsink consisted of releasing the two
spring-loaded clips, where we found an abundance of a
runny thermal paste. We cleaned this up a bit,
grabbed a camera shot of a now visible 9200SE core, and
re-attached the heatsink. An obvious benefit to
the passive cooling method is that it doesn't add any
additional noise to a system. So, if 3D
applications are not a primary necessity, adding in a
Stealth S80 is not only a frugal option, but a silent
one as well.
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Some Stealthy Screenshots |
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Now
try saying that three times really fast |
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Since a retail version of
Spy Hunter came with the Stealth S80, we decided
to take a couple of screenshots of the game to show off
the card's capabilities. The super-sleek car from
our childhood now sports some new capabilities such as
transforming into a boat or motorcycle. We then took
a few screen captures of the same starting scene, with and
without anti-aliasing and applying anisotropic
filtering. |
Spy Hunter Screenshots
1024x768x32 - Default Quality Settings
Standard
2xAA
2xAA+4xAF
As you can
see, the card can generate some nice visuals, but we
recommend using some lower resolutions in order to keep
the frame rates at a playable level. Spy Hunter is
a DirectX 8.1 based game, which caters to the Radeon
9200SE's strengths, but even at resolutions over
1024x768 we began to see some slowdowns. Needless
to say, the Stealth S80 will probably not fare too well
with the current and future crop of DX9 titles. We
were able to move smoothly along in Spy Hunter, even when
applying 2X AA, and then again with 4X anisotropic filtering
enabled. The optimizations really clean the images
up a bit, as you can see by checking the above images side
by side. At 2XAA with aniso enabled, the edges of
the car are much smoother and objects in the distance,
such as the numbers on the wall, are much sharper.
The Test System and our first benchmarks |
