Chrome S27

TerrorFirmer

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/s3-chrome-s27_3.html#sect0



I remember reading about this a long time ago but I didn't realise it was released, or more rather, totally forgot about it. In some tests it performs terribly while in others it beats the 6600 (which, back in 2005, was a good acheivement). Apparently also very good for media and has very low power consumption. Now I want one - just to be able to say I'm playing Half Life 2/Call of Duty 2 on my S3 card! The last S3 card I used was a Savage back in the UT 99 days...

Anyone ever used one, seen one for sale, or indeed really have any experience with this card? Wonder if drivers got better since the review...even if it was 2 years ago, I just can't believe I never heard anything whatsoever about this card.

They even have their own version of Sli/Crossfire which offers up to 85% increase in some apps, which is pretty cool.

http://www.digital-daily.com/video/s3-s27/index04.htm


All in all it seems like a medicore card but somewhat decent for video playback and of course in multi card mode, but the coolest thing would just be able to say you own an S3 card....everything is taken as absolute granted either Nvidia or Ati these days.
Also:

VIA planned the production of 2 new graphics chips, Chrome 460 and 430, by the end of 2007. The Chrome 460 will support DirectX 10 and adopts a 90nm process, while the Chrome 430 will support DirectX 10.1 and adopts a 65nm process.

8T8

I toyed with one once not bad but drivers were still a little rough round the edges, however S3 has major problems;

1) VIA is dieing they are bleeding cash and engineers, S3 does not have the resources to compete with NVIDIA & ATI.

2) Developer relations in order to get your parts into shape for games you must supply your hardware to game developers and provide assistance to them with your hardware for QA, debugging, optimizations etc. S3 does not have this kind of presence and probably would have to beg a dev to take notice whereas the 800 pound gorilla of devrel is NVIDIA which is also why they are hurting ATI so much now.

3) Distribution you need to get more than just one company on board selling these things you need partners to act as resellers in other locations.


The S3 Chrome parts were nice good video playback and they had one of the bes AF filters on the market all the way back to the Savage days but ATI/NV have now since caught up. Their multi-GPU implementation even showed promise but without all the above there is just no way they can compete effectively.

Intel, NV, ATI all gunning for a piece of the pie and it's only a matter of time before S3 and parent VIA are bought out I think and the Chrome 4xx could be the last part.

TerrorFirmer

I thought they were doing rather well in the mobile market though? Unichrome is pretty popular...

8T8

They have some OEM wins and thats whats keeping them afloat for now but with AMD/ATI joined at the hip you can bet that AMD CPU's will be featuring AMD chipsets a hell of a lot more in the future plus AMD Fusion will kill off a lot of the competition in the low end sector with a CPU that has an integrated GPU.

Although I don't quite believe it AMD says that Fusion will in fact challenge current mid-range and some high end if that is remotely true then Fusion is a lot better than what people expect it to be and that means trouble for other integrated graphics vendors.

VIA and S3 will be around for a while yet but I think the writing is on the wall for them with the fact that are focusing on their own VIA CPU's and going after the embedded/industrial/low power market. You don't need DX10 class GPU's for those.

TerrorFirmer

Where did you get it out of interest? They look great for media use - good video and according to one of the reviews as low of 9w consumption

8T8

I honestly cannot remember some UK site might have even been Dabs UK it's long gone now sold off in some machine I built for someone.