Bargain graphics card hits market
CALIFORNIAN CARD CREATOR S3 is offering a dual-stream Hi-Def video card with GDDR3 memory for just $69.
The Chrome 400 GTX is a low profile PCI Express Gen 2 graphics card which provides dual-stream Picture-in-Picture 1080p Blu-ray playback with DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 2.1 unified shader architecture and HDMI output.
S3 reckons the 440 GTX outperforms the current market leader in its class by over 15 per cent in 3D benchmarks and rendered FPS in DX10 and DX9 games.
It also features the ChromotionHD 2.0 video processor unit (VPU) and chews through MPEG-4/AVC (H.264), MPEG-2, VC-1, WMV-HD, and AVS Blu-ray content with ease. PowerWise technology keeps the heat and noise down.
The card seems to be out of stock at the moment but you should be able to order one here soon. S3 says that shipments to European partners will begin in the next few weeks. ยต
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I just went to the site through the "here" link (sorry, lINQ) and the price was only $59.99 US, but still out of stock. I'd think of using one on a HTPC.
It's always good to see competition in this graphics space. Saw this card a while back and some Germans (tomshardware I think) used it to run Crysis - the point is, it won't be in benchmark hall of fame anytime soon but it works! Sweet...
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The one issue here is that the card comes to market well after NV and ATI have already eaten up much of the sales for lowend cards. They should really try and release the lowend cards from S3 before or at the same time and NV and ATI. 15% preformance increase over the others isnt a lot considering the other two already sold to everyone that wanted them.
Get this: for once, this hotsy-totsy low-end card is not merely available, but available in the US (via the L'Inq in the article, which is to the S# GStore). From the specs, it would actually be a decent alternative to the HD2400PRO 256MB PCIe Gen1 cards that litter this pricing space right now. What I'd *really* like to see - a 512 MB version (or even an AGP 8X version).