SuperX VGA
The Boca Research SuperX VGA was a series of graphics adapters compatible with the IBM Video Graphics Array (VGA) standard on both ISA (16-bit) and VESA Local Bus.
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Released | Late 1993 |
| Bus | ISA or VESA Local Bus | |
| Chipset | Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426 or CL-GD5428 | |
| Standards | VGA | |
| Memory | 512 KB, 1 MB, or 2 MB DRAM (60ns) | |
| Ports | 15-pin DSUB (analog video) | |
| Part # | SVGA25, SXVGA5, SXVGA1, SVGAX3 | |
| FCC ID | EUD 5U9 BRI4610 | |
| Price | Dec 1993: $445 | |
| See Also |
A number of variants were released with the moniker "SuperX VGA" or "SuperX Accelerator VGA", including:
- SVGA25 - 16-bit ISA card with 512 KB of video memory, not upgradable
- SXVGA5 - 16-bit ISA card with 512 KB of video memory, upgradable to 1 MB
- SXVGA1 or SVGAX3 - 16-bit ISA card with 1 MB of video memory, not upgradable
Some cards came with the earlier Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426 while others got the 5428 with its faster BitBlt engine.
The SuperX VGA supported the following screen resolutions:
| Resolution | Colours | Vertical Refresh Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1280 x 1024 | 16 | 87 (interlaced) |
| 1024 x 768 | 256 | 60 / 70 / 72 (non-interlaced), or 87 interlaced |
| 800 x 600 | 65,536 | 56 / 60 (non-interlaced) |
| 800 x 600 | 256 | 50 / 60 / 72 (non-interlaced) |
| 640 x 480 | 16.7 million | 60 (non-interlaced) |
| 640 x 480 | 65,536 | 60 / 72 (non-interlaced) |
Board Revisions
I have no information on the various board revisions on the SuperX VGA card.
Competition
In late 1993, 2 MB graphics accelerator cards were aplenty, though these were very much mixed in terms of their performance since many cards were still using the old ISA bus while others worked on the faster VLB bus. The SuperX VGA went head to head with cards such as Diamond Stealth Pro VLB, Orchid Fahrenheit VA/VLB, Genoa Windows VGA 24 Turbo, ELSA Winner 1000VL, Number Nine GXE, Hercules Graphite Pro, and Matrox MGA Ultima. A lot of these 2 MB cards supported resolutions of 1280 x 1024 in 256 colours (higher than this Boca card's 1024 x 768).
In a PC Magazine review in December 1993, the fastest 2 MB cards that ran at 1024 x 768 in 256 colours were the Appian Renegade 1280/V, American Megatrends FastView VLB, Cardinal WarpSpeed, Diamond Viper VLB, and Matrox MGA Ultima VLB. The Boca SuperX VGA sat in the middle of the pack alongside the Diamond Stealth Pro VLB, ELSA Winner 1000, Genoa WindowsVGA 24 Turbo, and Orchid Fahrenheit VA/VLB. Moving to 800 x 600 in 16.7 million colours, the Matrox MGA Ultima VLB really shone, though strikingly, the ISA version of the same card came in 2nd place, followed in 3rd by the Actix GraphicsEngine Ultra VL. The Boca card here isn't able to run at this resolution and colour depth.
Drivers played a massive part in a card's performance during this time, with card manufacturers often drastically updating the chipset maker's reference drivers, so if your card seems to be operating well below par, try searching for different drivers. Key chipset manufacturers for these cards include the Weitek P9000, Appian AGC 98032, Matrox MGA, ATI mach32, S3 86C801, S3 86C805, S3 86C928, and Tseng Labs ET4000/W32i.
In the Media
The Actix ProStar VL is a steal at $169 (list), providing good Windows application performance and the same basic features (such as installation software and utilities) offered by all of the reviewed boards based on the Cirrus Logic GD5428. The Cardinal VideoSpectrum VL, which lists for $199, had slightly weaker performance than the other boards in this category. The higher-priced Genoa WindowsVGA 24 Turbo ($289 list) provided higher refresh rates and came with better installation software and utilities than the other Cirrus Logic cards. The Boca Research VL-Bus SuperX VGA, which was the most expensive card in this category ($445 list), offered no discernible performance or features benefits to justify its higher price.
All of the Cirrus Logic boards we tested are local-bus cards that support a maximum of 64,000 colours in Super VGA. None of them, however, support 24-bit true-color graphics.
The boards using the GD5428 all performed above average on our Winstone test. In 800-by-600 mode with 256 colors, they scored near the top, with an average Winstone score of 52 with 16MB of RAM. The ProStar had the highest Winstone scores among the GD5428-based video processors, and was among the top-ten overall on this test.
In contrast, these same boards all scored below average on our WinBench test. This difference can best be explained by examining the differences between the two tests. WinBench issues many more Windows API calls per second than does Winstone. WinBench's Graphic WinMark exercises the API using a wide range of graphics calls with a large distribution of parameters. WinBench also utilizes dithering, which tests a board's color range more intensively.
We believe the difference between the Cirrus Logic cards' WinBench and Winstone results is due to the boards' design. The GD5428-based video cards in this roundup all use DRAM rather than VRAM. VRAM is dual-ported, which lets two operations occur simultaneously; the screen is updated while new video information is being accessed by the system. VRAM is also more expensive than DRAM, which is not dual-ported.
Designers of DRAM-based boards have to make up for the lack of dual-ported memory, which is critical to the effectiveness of the video boards' WinBench performance. The GD5428-based boards use an asynchronous architecture; buffering writes to memory while the screen and memory refresh are accessing the DRAM. Also, the GD5428 processor (like most of the adapters in this review) handles only two instructions per clock cycle."
PC Magazine, 7 Dec 1993
Setting it Up
I have no information of the hardware set up for the Boca card.
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! |
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