VIA/S3 Delta core to undercut all DX9 competitors

VIA/S3 said at that time that they would expect to be the last to bring a DirectX 9 offering to market. They've certainly been as good as their word.

The card was announced back at Cebit in March this year, so it it's about time it hit the market, we reckon.

The codename Columbia may have been dropped for Delta Chrome these days, but the chippery will finally be available in the second half of November, we learn.

But we still don't have any idea about final clock specification or possible performance of this card.

What we do know is that the high-end DeltaChromeF1: Performance Series will be the first 0.13µ, 8-pipeline graphic chip - since ATI is still at 0.15µ, while Nvidia still have the 4x2 engine. The card will address up to 256MB of memory and will be DirectX 9.0 compatible. Expect Native HDTV out and the fancy Chromotion Programmable Video Engine too.

The mainstream DeltaChromeS8 will also use 8-pipelines with up to 128MB memory also DirectX 9 compatible with Native HDTV out and Chromotion.

The value solicitation, branded DeltaChromeS4 will be the lowest-cost DirectX 9 card on the market, with up to 128MB memory and the obligatory HDTV and Chromotion.

On all of these cards the 8-pixel pipelines will each have 128-bit precision while the 3D engine boasts impressive 2.4 Giga-pixels per second fill rate. Cards feature programmable Pixel Shader 2.0+ and Vertex Shader 2.0+ - an implementation in hardware that we expect to exceed the DX 9 specification.

Its nice to see S3 back in the game. If there is enough performance at the right pricing, and assuming the drivers are fine, expect to see VIA shift quite few of these boards. µ

See also:
S3 re-enters the GFX Market Swinging
S3 Columbia finally takes DirectX 9 shape