Diamond SpeedStar A90
The SpeedStar A90 arrived in 1999 and was based on the S3 Savage4 graphics accelerator chipset.
Released | 1999 | |
Bus | AGP 4x (at 2x) | |
Chipset | S3 Savage4 Pro+ | |
Standards | Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA | |
Memory | 16 MB or 32 MB SDRAM | |
Ports | 15-pin DSUB (video out) 26-pin VGA Feature connector |
|
RAMDAC | 300 MHz | |
Part # | 28020100-001, 28020100-002 | |
FCC ID | ||
Price | At launch: £69 | |
See Also |
The Savage4 can be thought of as a bug-fixed Savage3D - good specs on paper, but it turned out to be a commercial failure. As we had come to expect from S3, their drivers were awful, but they did support OpenGL and Direct 3D as well as S3's own 3D API, S3metal.
The card has solder pads for A/V out as well as DFP (Digital Flat Panel) out.
This card supported DirectX 6. The A90 was similar to other Savage4 cards such as the Creative 3D Blaster and Number Nine SR9, with a core clock that ran at 125 MHz and its RAMDAC at 300 MHz. Memory bandwidth was 1000 MB/second.
3DMark 99 score: 2049
3DMark 2000 score: 704
Board Revisions
One board revision is known, B.
Competition
Cards that used the Savage4 Pro came with 16 or 32 MB of SDRAM, while most Savage4 non-Pro cards came with just 8 MB. Despite the clock ratings and memory throughput being in the same ballpark as the nVidia RiVA TNT2, the chip itself just wasn't comparable. So what did the S3 cards have going for them? Price! At just £69 retail, they suited those with shallow pockets.
In the Media
Setting it Up
Downloads
Operation Manual Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
Original Utility Disk Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA BIOS ROM Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA BIOS ROM Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA BIOS ROM Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
More Pictures