S3 Graphics Chrome 440 GTX 256 MB

[MrMilli]

yes i didn't mention that you must look at the texture fillrate of my office IGP and it's bus width which i agree is a $hitty GPU. but it still doesn't justify spending $69.95 for a card that would serve the same purpose as it does not have enough grunt for current games.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/S3/Chrome_440_GTX/30.html

First of all, that's an IGP you're talking about. That memory bus is the system memory bus.
Second, how can you be sure that your texture fillrate is higher if they don't mention the texture fillrate of the 440 GTX? From what i remember, it has 8 texture units.

You are right, it doesn't justify the price for an office computer. Actually no card does because an IGP is all an office needs.

Keep in mind that W1zzard ran all games max'ed out. Run any of these games at medium setting (except Crysis ofcourse) and you'll get perfectly good playable fps.
Actually W1zzard should have tested these games at medium setting.

 

[Deleted member 57642]

The core overclock is simply amazing and shows that there is still a lot of potential left in the Chrome 400 GPU

Potential for what? Gaming? - was funny to see this card tested with latest games. It must have been an awful experience for W1zzard, especially after testing a card like Sapphire HD 4870 X2 2048 MB . At least the hardware installation was easy to do.

 

[OtopC]

First of all, that's an IGP you're talking about. That memory bus is the system memory bus.
Second, how can you be sure that your texture fillrate is higher if they don't mention the texture fillrate of the 440 GTX? From what i remember, it has 8 texture units.

You are right, it doesn't justify the price for an office computer. Actually no card does because an IGP is all an office needs.

Keep in mind that W1zzard ran all games max'ed out. Run any of these games at medium setting (except Crysis ofcourse) and you'll get perfectly good playable fps.
Actually W1zzard should have tested these games at medium setting.

that is why i provided the link. so that you can see the comparison. i just can not see the point of such a card unless it is for a PC with no integraded GPU.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Its no gaming card,i guess w1zzard did the gaming tests as a comparison to other cards.

 

[$ReaPeR$]

Its no gaming card,i guess w1zzard did the gaming tests as a comparison to other cards.

i agree with the above mentioned point. IMO the best thing this card has to offer is a third company to the GPU market and that is very good potentially because if they could manage the mid end market at least we would see allot of competition and that is always good for prices.i hope they come up with a more competitive product next time.

 

[Sasqui]

fixed. too much copy and paste

And I thought it was some "tongue-in-cheek" aimed at the higher end cards. "... Did I mention lower power consumption?"

 

[candle_86]

actully a simple fix would be to make it full size and 128bit, it would most likly jump alot higher, the bottleneck is the memory

 

[MadClown]

i think my old radeon 9100 can out perform this, well atleast come close to it in Far Cry, Its WiC performance aint half bad at 1024x768

 

[cdawall]

i think my old radeon 9100 can out perform this, well atleast come close to it in Far Cry, Its WiC performance aint half bad at 1024x768

uhh no it cant performance wise its not way off of a 7600GS/GT all of you can read correct? this is a HTPC card NOT a GAMING CARD

whats it do in that arena? well its quieter than BOTH cards its close to the 8500GT/HD3450. it runs cool and its low profile. all of this and it still has HDMI+VGA+DVI. what card is close to that?


all of the arguments have been stupid from what i have seen.

its not doing good in games

no shit sherlock its a bloody HTPC card its made for a guess what HTPC!

my IGP is free....

you just need to leave i mean honestly what kind of stupid comment is that? this card can run on any PC with pci-e there is almost no power required to run this thing...

good parts of the card

there are chipset coolers bigger than the cooler on this thing

good performance:watt

good price for something that is almost silent and does HDCP over HDMI WITH AUDIO!

its not made by ATi so the drivers wont suck @ release

its not made by NV so its not hugely overpriced @ release

MULTICHROME!!! multi gpu on any mobo with multi pci-e slots

 

[dpgx]

Multichrome doesnt work, I picked up a pair for old times sake and havent gotten it working on an intel mobo or ati mobo...

 

[AddSub]

From review:

I didn't experience any driver problems with the Chrome 440 GTX

Wow! Really? All those games and benchmarks and no driver problems? Sounds like S3(Via?) is finally doing well, as far as drivers go. As I remember their DeltaChrome adventure was derailed in part due to poor drivers.

 

[MadClown]

uhh no it cant performance wise its not way off of a 7600GS/GT all of you can read correct? this is a HTPC card NOT a GAMING CARD

Why so serious?

 

[unsmart]

It would have been nice to see CPU usage for DVD and BLU-Ray play back and a mention of image quality. If I had to guess I would say NV and ATI have far better playback.
It's cool to see the low end get a look now and then and I'm looking forward to some more "under the radar products" getting reviews here.

 

[OnBoard]

I love it how they mentioned on the backside on the package how it beats HD3470 in 3DMark06, it's the ONLY 3dmark/game that the card does ok (beating 8500GT) They sure have learned from the best how to optimize for benchmarks

But I do like that they are trying and with half the price it would be good for what it's meant for.

 

[DrPepper]

For HTPC cards the gaming part of the review is kinda irrelevant but still useful incase a wonder card comes around and shags crysis while being quiet, low power and low cost *takes more mushrooms*

but seriously cheers for the review w1zz, kinda raised awareness about this card

 

[stickedy]

First of all, thanks for this great review! I just linked it: http://english.chrome-center.de/content/view/177/29/lang,en/

To those who laugh about this card: It's in the same class as Radeon 3450, so it's low cost, low power, low end. The card is as good as these solutions from AMD and nVidia! So, nothing to laugh about! Anyone who thinks about it should realize that this isn't a performance card...

@W1zzard
You made a mistake: S3 Graphics was established by VIA Technologies and SONICBlue (the old S3) in 2000 with finalizing the deal in 2001. Not 2004 as you wrote. I guess you had your informations from english Wikipedia? It was just wrong, 2004 was the year when SONICBlue filled Chapter 11 but this wasn't connected with S3 Graphics or VIA Technologies. I alread corrected the english Wikipedia (other languages got it right)
Look here for confirmation: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2001_Jan_4/ai_68748683

 

[DrPepper]

First of all, thanks for this great review! I just linked it: http://english.chrome-center.de/content/view/177/29/lang,en/

To those who laugh about this card: It's in the same class as Radeon 3450, so it's low cost, low power, low end. The card is as good as these solutions from AMD and nVidia! So, nothing to laugh about! Anyone who thinks about it should realize that this isn't a performance card...

I have a 3450 and im quite satisfied with it I reckon this would be better.

 

[MilkyWay]

HD3450 seems like a better choice to me, or even a cheapo 8600gt

its just that the other cards that nvidia and ati offer while using up more power just offer more bang for buck since they have uvd and media decoding and more horsepower that lets you actually use a pc

fair gmae to S3 but they are gonna need something with mroe features if its to compete on the media and office market or HTPC market because ati and nvidia offer more features

plus they usually have better bundles with dongles ect good for hooking up to a tv

 

[stickedy]

HD3450 seems like a better choice to me, or even a cheapo 8600gt

its just that the other cards that nvidia and ati offer while using up more power just offer more bang for buck since they have uvd and media decoding and more horsepower that lets you actually use a pc

fair gmae to S3 but they are gonna need something with mroe features if its to compete on the media and office market or HTPC market because ati and nvidia offer more features

plus they usually have better bundles with dongles ect good for hooking up to a tv

S3 Graphics' Chromotion Engine HD 2.0 (similar to AMDs UVD) is the far superior solution for video acceleration and decoding! Especially nVidia has no comparable offering!

 

[ShadowFold]

I just sold my HD 3450 and bought one for my HTPC Will tell you guys how it is!

 

[MilkyWay]

Chromotion Engine only works in certain dvd playing programs

Drivers are worse and the card dosnt seems as powerful, at this price tho youd better shell out an extra £10 for a HD3650

 

[Frick]

I just sold my HD 3450 and bought one for my HTPC Will tell you guys how it is!

Excellent! It'd be interesting to see how it fares when it comes to HD playback and so on.

 

[stickedy]

Chromotion Engine only works in certain dvd playing programs

That's only a problem with Windows XP since Chromotion Engine HD 2.0 relies on DXVA 2.0 and therefore only with Windows Vista the acceleration is always available with any programm which supports DXVA 2.0. Under Windows XP you need specific programs. But that's the same with nVidia and AMD as well! With the exception that their solutions are longer in the market and therefore the support is already there.

Drivers are worse and the card dosnt seems as powerful, at this price tho youd better shell out an extra £10 for a HD3650

Why are the drivers worse? There are no real diver issues with Chrome 400 Series, at least no more than with AMD or nVidia.

And again: This is a DirectX 10.1 card and therefore driver development of course is focused on Windows Vista! It's a bit sad that this Review was made only with Windows XP SP2 instead of Windows Vista SP1, because that's the OS where the card is really at home.

But you're right: The price is too high in comparison to the competition. But it's the price of S3 Graphics own GStore while the price from AIB partners are far lower. You see that if you compare Chrome 430GT at GStore with the offerings from Qimonda, Digicool and Aopen in other parts of the world.

 

[Darkrealms]

Well if nothing else cudos for giving it a shot and KEEP TRYING! The market needs a good hardworking compeditor.

W1zzard was that a demo they sent you or did you purchase it?

Two Chrome 400 products are available at this time: the Chrome 430 GT and the faster Chrome 440 GTX. Both use the same 65 nm graphics chip, but the 440 GTX uses GDDR3 and higher clocks. Both cards are targeted at the entry-level segment, with possible uses in office systems or Home Theater PCs. Even though gaming is supported, don't expect anything beyond basic resolutions at medium detail settings.

Just a reminder people, this was on the first page.

 

[W1zzard]

the card is a retail card sent to me by s3