Creative Labs : 3D Blaster Savage4 Review

Written: 8/22/99
Written by: Kahthan "Kat" Deane
Price: $129.99 US
Savage 4 supplied by: Creative Labs

The Savage4 needs no introduction now, after the false start that was the Savage3D, S3 went about designing their next real contender. No it's not the Savage4 it's the GX4. The Savage4 is more or less a patched up fixed up and faster version of the Savage3D with multi-texturing which was more or less designed to fill the role of the cheapest available card which would fit nicely into this transitional period we are in now.

The chip itself comes in several flavors, the Savage4 PRO, the Savage4 GT and the mobile edition known as the Savage4 MX. The Savage4 PRO in itself has various versions, which are categorized by their core speed, the highest of which are the PRO and the PRO+. The difference here is that the PRO is rated at 110Mhz and the PRO+ is rated at 125Mhz. Initially there was a lot of confusion with the PRO+ and its actual rating, but that has now been clarified by S3.

The Creative 3D Blaster Savage4 uses the Savage4 PRO, and its default clock speed is set to 110/125 (Core/Memory). The memory is 32MB of 8ns SDRAM. It is an AGP2X compatible card with no TV-out.

Now, the question on everyone's lips is "Why on earth would S3 produce a chip which has the same core speed as the chips from the previous generation?" The answer is not a simple one, The Savage4 has been born out of consideration for keeping the cost low whilst adding as many features and putting as much RAM as possible on the card. This to a certain extent has worked quite well, it is still too early to really assess the impact the card has had but the responses seem very positive.

The hype surrounding the main selling point of the Savage3D and the Savage4, S3TC; has more or less died down now and those who have seen it will except nothing else and those who haven't seem to value speed above image quality. The real value of S3TC is higher texture quality at higher resolutions, but the real problem is the Savage4 is more or less limited to 1024x768 thereby negating its main benefit.

One definite credit that must go to Creative is the launch of the card; it was launched on the 27th of April and was available in retail stores worldwide about two-three weeks afterwards. This was the first Savage4 based card to appear on the market, and even though the drivers indicated that it had been rushed out, it worked and any other problems that would've appeared would be fixed soon.

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