Chrome 530 GT series launched by S3
THE NEXT GENERATION Chrome 500 GPU from S3 Graphics has tipped up, touting all kinds of graphical goodness.
S3 reckons its new Chrome 500 Series comes with Hi-Def Blu-ray playback, HD video streaming, DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.0 apps for Windows and Linux platforms.
Boasting features like Picture-in-Picture and eight channels of high fidelity audio, courtesy of the inbuilt Dolby 7.1 digital surround sound processor, S3 also reckons its new GPU is the cat’s pajamas when it comes to speeding up 3D and non-gaming functions with its programmable shader cores.
The firm says its DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.0 support will also mean better real-life 3D rendering, improved Anti-aliasing, Image/Texture improvements, higher precision formats, and programmable lighting effects, for a full on 3D graphics experience.
By using an array of S3’s stream processors, the company says its Chrome GPUs can accelerate parallel data workloads and work concurrently on thousands of threads for Gigaflops of high-throughput computations, useful for image processing, video transcoding and game physics amongst other things.
The Chrome’s ChromotionHD Video Technology also purportedly takes some of the processing weight off the CPU, saving overall system power. The series also trumpets its incorporation of DisplayPort with HDCP, HDMI with HDCP, dual-link DVI with HDCP and dual-channel LVDS transmitters in order to connect up a plethora of digital monitors and panels.
PCI Express 2.0 bus technology is, of course, supported providing that extra bit of bandwidth for intensive apps and games and the faster connection speed also means users can use S3’s AcceleRAM to leverage system memory for image data storage and Multi-GPU tech, MultiChrome, for twice the 3D rendering performance on games.
Add-in cards with graphics accelerators from the Chrome 530 GT series, are also apparently being flogged in S3’s online GStore shop. µ
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uhhh, $49 for these cards, and the 530GT link is not working... Is this for real? Someone need to look harder at that site. https://s3gstore.s3graphics.com/
I found it's sold on Gstore at $45, even cheaper than 440GTX. It's much worthy now if this is true. can its power consumption be lower than 15W??
I like that S3 is trying to stay competitive, but I'm surprised they can. I never see there cards for sale and I never see reviews of them. How do they actually fare vs nVidia and ATI in Windows and Linux tests?
try "Internet Exploder" instead of your high-quality browser, and you might see something. With no TYPE specified for the script, a decent WC3-compliant browser utterly refuses to guess that it's javascript. IE has it's own "standards", and probably works. Of course, if the microcode and drivers are written with the same skill, quality, and reliability as the web pages was.... don't buy it.
It says OpenGL 2.1 on the product page
to K2k7. there are actually reviews on chrome400 and its comparison to nv and amd's competitive parts. but just as its user base, you can just find a few of them. but the conclusion is if they can not only keep the power low but also the price, they can definitely beat the low end cards of nv and amd's. and if look at the mobile market. they really have the chance to compete with nv and amd's mobile chips, but it seems notebook manufacturers are more prefer nv/amd even intel's...so i just wanna say, s3...please keep fighting! i will be surprised if you can survive through recession ages.
I'll take a 540GTX version. Slower clock speed but double the memory when compared to 440gtx. Same clock speed as the 430gt but double the memory. A comparison between 440gtx and 530gt would be interesting.
I don't care about OpenGL3.0, I only care about image and video quality. This is a perfect machine for HTPCs since it's as cheap as chips and can be passively cooled easily. Plus, it's always nice to see some other player in this "executive" game. - Larabee anyone?
Why in the world would anyone want one of these when, for the same price, one could just go across the street and grab an ATI HD 4350? Better drivers and, in case the card breaks down, you can much more easily get a replacement because ATI has a wider distribution and support network. I just don't understand why S3 thinks anyone would actually buy one of these things. Yeah, it works, but it's like saying, "Buy a Kia. It's just as good as a Toyota and we're pricing it squarely against Toyotas." Right.
The really difference between S3's card and ATI & Nvidia's cheap cards is that the 530GT can send HD sound over the HDMI port. Granted they don't have a player that supports the option but PowerDVD Cinema 8, due for release this month will support the option.