Impressed by S3? A bit of a shock, that, but it may happen. In the late 90s the ViRGE line from S3 was given the nickname "3D Decelerator", and though that is not entirely fair, it is true that in the performance market, nobody can push ATI and nVidia out. This time around, though, that isn't S3's goal. Though a gamer may not take a second glance at an S3 lineup, I must say that over the past two years, having seen several S3 integrated video solutions, both at home and in the office, S3 has done a quite decent job of getting decent performance in low-power integrated video, enough for just about any standard home or office machine. Their successor to their Unichrome/Chrome line, Chrome20, is going to be a standalone 3D card designed to fit in between integrated video and performance video. You might be thinking why, considering both ATI and nVidia offer entry-level cards. This particular series though, supporting the newer PCIEx bus, not only gives playable framerates in modern games such as Half Life 2, but also uses a very low-power design.
The card is tailored to run modern games and applications at the most common resolutions well, and be not only cool on the wallet but also cool in the case. Among other things such as ROHS compliance, this would make the card attractive for embedded systems as well as laptops.