05:20
Abdul Raauf
Remember the times when S3 was king of the hill in the PC graphics arena? The Virge series was sort of a precursor for the 3Dfx’s 3D accelerators. Those were some foggy times in the evolution of 3D graphics, but after the emergence of 3Dfx and NVIDIA, S3 somehow slipped into a dark era of low-end graphics solutions. However, it managed to survive by teaming up with VIA. The last decade has seen some futile attempts at decent mid-range solutions from S3, but nothing really set the market on fire. Now, S3 is planning to take over the IGP market.
S3’s latest GPU, Chrome 430GT, proved to have a balanced performance/cost ratio, but S3 isn’t happy with the results. Just recently, it has announced the 4300E Embedded multi-media graphics processor that is supposed to outperform the competition by as much as 30%.
The upcoming 4300E is made in the 65nm manufacturing process and it can be clocked at frequencies ranging from 300MHz to 600MHz. Being an embedded solution, it only supports up to 256MB of either GDDR2 or GDDR3 memory and comes with features such as DirectX 10.1 support, OpenGL 2.1, PCI-Express 2.0 and an advanced high quality programmable video core that should lower the usage of the CPU when users start running HD video content.
The 4300E still pays tribute to the old CRT technology as it integrates two analog RAMDACs : one for CRT connectivity and a dual-link DVI/HDMI with HDPC as well as dual channel LVDS transmitters. Compatibility shouldn’t be a problem because S3 already took care of a new set of drivers that works with Windows XP and Vista.
The new S3 IGP is scheduled to appear in a motherboard near you sometime June
S3’s latest GPU, Chrome 430GT, proved to have a balanced performance/cost ratio, but S3 isn’t happy with the results. Just recently, it has announced the 4300E Embedded multi-media graphics processor that is supposed to outperform the competition by as much as 30%.
The upcoming 4300E is made in the 65nm manufacturing process and it can be clocked at frequencies ranging from 300MHz to 600MHz. Being an embedded solution, it only supports up to 256MB of either GDDR2 or GDDR3 memory and comes with features such as DirectX 10.1 support, OpenGL 2.1, PCI-Express 2.0 and an advanced high quality programmable video core that should lower the usage of the CPU when users start running HD video content.
The 4300E still pays tribute to the old CRT technology as it integrates two analog RAMDACs : one for CRT connectivity and a dual-link DVI/HDMI with HDPC as well as dual channel LVDS transmitters. Compatibility shouldn’t be a problem because S3 already took care of a new set of drivers that works with Windows XP and Vista.
The new S3 IGP is scheduled to appear in a motherboard near you sometime June
Posted in: Computer Hardware
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