Well, that's an utter extreme FSB overclock, that will literally make 3D Mark 2001 explode in perfomance.

Hence the comparison of the Video Card is not 'quite' possible; it's not my System that's wrong, it's actually yours that's overclocked to achieve those performance spikes

We'd have to settle on much more GPU bound benchmarks to still compare the Video Card. Otherwise, your extreme FSB will eat up my (stock clocked) machine in isolated spots easily.

(I've noted your P3 was overclocked as well, 133 > 140?)
---------------
Let's chose something as GPU bound as possible :
3D Quark 2003 b340 for example...

I know *g*
But since the beginning of FSB Overclocks, people noted 3D Mark 2001 series take massive jumps by it

Here's the 2003 one :
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3035932

I saw you have FastWrites Enabled (Smartgart won't let me enable this). I know this can result in performance increases on intel Systems, but so far was generally thought to be of little effect on AMD Systems.

So apart from what we did so far, we could only sqeeze the Radeon 8500 further to its testing limits by moving to 1600x1200 Resolution and/or enabling FSAA/Aniso.

Download Link :
http://www.4players.de/rendersite.php?sid=&LAYOUT=download_info&GAMEID=3702&UPDA...

PS.
One of the official Mirrors should provide adequate speed though

Otherwise, Aquamark3 should serve our purpose "okay" as well however, although not as extremely GPU bound as the Quark2003 b340.

Quick question :

Does your Motherboard have a fixed PCI/AGP divisor ?

If yes, it remains an oddity (maybe the WinXP does the trick?)...
If no, not only your FSB, but also your AGP and PCI Ports would clock a hell lot faster.

I wouldn't call the difference dramatic though, Single Texturing is irrelevant to modern Games, and the average end Result is 9.7% above mine.

Would be interesting however, to see how things turn out at complete stock speeds, no Overclock.
That would also show the effects of it quite nice (and maybe solve alot of questions regarding our ability to compare otherwise identical Video Cards)

I'd still say your Overclock (and to some extend WinXP) do the trick. I've seen the XP machines somewhat outrun my Win2000 a bit on other comparisons as well, I just can't put a fixed % advantage to it.

After all, an old rule says :
Never compare an overclocked system to a non-overclocked one, when looking for reliable comparison of single, identical items in them

You're correct, I run PC333 RAM's at SPD (moderate) timings, and stability of the System is paramount.

After all, this Rig is serving data 24/7 a day to 23 other Systems, so I need it on an uptime of 100%.
(I might start tweaking this & that however *g* )

Anyway, apart from all comparisons, the good old Radeon 8500 indeed still packs a punch

------------
Hm, tweaked the Bios and enabled Fast Writes myself.
(I left RAM timings alone, however)

Surprisingly, the Envroinment Bumpmapping score rocketed, the rest increased with the expected tiny amount by the tweaking :
3D Mark 2001SE b330
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8086842

3D Mark 2003 (only minimal gains)
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3036692

Hehe, after applying the optimized Settings in my Bios, and using a new Driver, the Deltachrome does better than ever :

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8100523

Bumpmap and shader performance are now alot closer to where one would expect them

Given the Driver Situation, right now , that's (partly) correct of course.

As I said earler, plain Gamers cannot go wrong with the established Cards to avoid Problems; but do note a mere 2 weeks worth of Driver work got about 5% out of it throughout the envelope + likely some more bugs fixed (didn't test in Detail)

The way I see it, it is just an interesting piece of Hardware that is slowly being given the right Drivers to show its performance, a completely natural development.

The process naturally puts the Hardware far below envelope at first, and it is in the process of achieving progressivly higher performance almost every month.

Bottom line : It's getting there, it's just not quite there yet
=====================
If we didn't honor that, hardly any 3D Accelerator would have seen the light of the day, and we'd still use our ET4000/6000 in highly optimized VESA Modes

And as this is S3's first serious step into performance 3D since a very long time, it has to take the hard road of gathering experience with the Rules of optimizing and closely collaborating with the Gaming Industry.
(while the big tiers already can utilize their >5 years worth of know-how in that field)

Putting that in perspective (which I found many people and reviewers simply don't do), it remains a solid piece of Hardware, for those that have the time to spare to get into it.

If we would put that attitude "everything must run bug-free right from the get-go at max. performance and Quality" towards all pieces of Hardware, we'd probably wouldn't even have 3D Accelerators, nor a PCI/AGP Bus or some other HighTech bits right now... All put down and failed prematurely because of initial bugs or problems.

What you (and other Critics) need to understand, is that the Radeon 8500 (as an example) has absolutely topped off by all means (Drivers, Performance, Support, Optimization), while the Deltachrome in turn is just beginning to catch serious throttle in all of those fields.

The Kyro1/2 had exactly the same Problems at first, were put down because of Drivers and still working with SD-RAM.
The end we know, they actually turned out as excellent and highly efficient Gaming cards in the end (for those that knew what they were doing).
==============
Mind you, I might test the freshly arrived XGI counterpart later today
(looking at the Retail Box, the Game of Marketing those guys already play very well *g* )

And yes, this is serious fun for me, that's what I got those Cards for 

PS.
It's a 256MB Card, don't actually know why 3D Quark insists on claiming it was 512MB

I know

Well, so far it looks like they're serious.
The next (possible) breakpoint we'll have to see, is when they release a successor, and if they'll still support the 2nd line of Cards then.

Having their 'infamous' past in mind as well, the development so far looks quite good, and I see no reason for them to stop doing that.
(that was maybe the most positive experience I got out of them so far)

Hence I'm pretty positive about the Deltachrome, I saw no absolute showstopper in that Card so far (which I was afraid to see).

PS.
Had some close look at the XGI, and *ugh*, that must be the heaviest piece of PC Video Card I've ever seen...
Talking about a serious "brute force" approach to things hehe