The GPUs seem to be perfect candidates
for laptops, especially as the demand for battery life
continues to grow. With a card dissipating around half the
power a typical laptop GPU does now, but still offering a
decent performance level, it's another chip in the wall
towards laptops that last all day.
The S3 cards do have a particular area
of note though, and that is multi GPU. This is where
MultiChrome comes into play, and I personally see this as
the most interesting part of these cards' feature set.
Currently, ATI and nVidia are going head to head with
Crossfire and SLI. nVidia has enjoyed a rather exclusive
dominance, with a much earlier release and problems that
have plagued Crossfire. Rather than try to re-invent the
wheel, S3 has decided to join both parties. MultiChrome can
be used with no additional cabling to link the cards (as is
becoming de-facto), and will let you use the S27 based cards
in dual mode in any vendors’ compatible chipset. So,
an SLI-capable nForce 4 motherboard or a Crossfire-capable
Radeon Xpress board will (according to the brief) be able to
have two of these cards at once.
Power over Performance
On paper, these cards look ideal for a
media center or a laptop. Performance is there, but not
killer. Comparing the performance to the power used,
however, and you have a good combination of card that can be
used in virtually any environment and be able to provide.
Unfortunately, until we get to review the cards in question
after release, it is difficult to say how they will be
placed in the market. This brings us to the last category…
Price
Based on previous appearances, likely
the cards will be fairly low in price. If S3 does continue
with previous trends, and the paper figures stick, you'll
end up with a very low cost solution that fits well in
embedded markets.
Final Thoughts
It's been a long time since there was
something to be excited about coming from S3. Here though, I
see the potential for something particularly interesting, if
done right. 9W GPUs, advanced visual filtering,
MultiChrome, and various other things make the tidings look
good. I'm not going to stick my neck out, though, until
some units are ready to review.
If S3 wants a comeback they must be
careful, as this could easily turn sour by trying to pit the
cards against the high-end or putting price tags that don't
match the market. Performance/power looks decent, but these
certainly won’t be gaming cards, not at this point in time.
Also if lessons should be learned from the past, S3 should
make its biggest efforts on offering rock solid drivers that
support most, if not all features from day one. Ultimately,
OEM support will play a very important role, so they can
increase production, cut costs eventually, gain market
share, and make room for next generation products.
I will say that it is encouraging to
see some vendors aside from ATI and nVidia have some
innovation. Even Matrox has been quiet as of late. These
cards are supposed to appear today in the Asian market, with
North America and Europe slated to follow soon.
