PVR Neon 250 Hands On

3DHardware.net scoops up the Videologic PowerVR Neon 250 (aka PVR Second/Next Generation). It goes without saying that this card kind of missed the boat, but still offers outstanding performance and quality (as seen in the Dreamcast), and offers a peek at Series 3. Too bad they missed out on Q3Test Phase4, but they still did a fps bit anyway:

We all know that the Timedemo is broken and does not give an accurate FPS, but still it does give an indication of where the performance is headed. The Neon 250 was run on the very first version of Q3Test due to the fact that there were still some issues concerning the compatibility with the newer Q3Test versions. All tests were run in 1024x768 with the highest possible detail level, tri-linear filtering and 32bpp source and rendering. Using cg_drawfps 1, the average FPS after running around the entire Test Level 1 a few times seemed around 40FPS. Minimum being around 25FPS and maximum weighing in around the 60FPS area. Not bad at all and very splendid considering the fact that the Neon 250 only runs at a clockspeed of 125MHz for both the core and memory. 32bpp doesnÂ’t seem to be a big problem for the Neon 250, much due to the fact that there is no need for a Z-buffer. This also saves up memory meaning that the 16MBs of onboard memory can be used much more effectively for textures.