# S3 Graphics Chrome 440 GTX 256 MB



## W1zzard (Aug 28, 2008)

The Chrome 440 GTX is the latest card from S3 Graphics. It features all the main bullet points like DirectX 10.1, PCI-Express 2.0, native HDMI with integrated audio, small form factor and low heat output. But is this enough to compete with the offerings from ATI and NVIDIA?

*Show full review*


----------



## jbunch07 (Sep 4, 2008)

I lol at the price/performance. Thats just funny. its way overpriced for how it performs.


----------



## Kreij (Sep 4, 2008)

> Not made by evil ATI or NVidia



That got a smile out of me.

Other than that, it would be nice to see some better performing cards in the future.
I'll keep my eye on S3 to see if they are serious about playing with the evil empires


----------



## Polaris573 (Sep 4, 2008)

A nice step in the right direction.


----------



## btarunr (Sep 4, 2008)

They should have given this a silent cooler, making it slightly more HTPC worthy. At least S3 can make multi-view cards to compete with those..ehm..$500 Matrox multi-head cards, or ATI's FireMV.


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 5, 2008)

What fail.  I was lolling at all the benchies, 5, 6fps maybe.  Come on...  Price per perf...  uhh, who will buy that piece of crap.


----------



## 3870x2 (Sep 5, 2008)

it scaled well at higher resolutions, regardless its still a slideshow.  Im really wanting S3 take a shot at the mid and high end market, hell they arent even making low end, they are just making the rock bottom, that no one buys on purpose.


----------



## Kreij (Sep 5, 2008)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> What fail. uhh, who will buy that piece of crap.





			
				3870x2 said:
			
		

> that no one buys on purpose



Ahhh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha  

Thanks guys, I am still laughing so hard my eyes are watering.

I know they are trying, but on a board like TPU this is Epic Fail.


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 5, 2008)

Kreij said:


> Ahhh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
> 
> Thanks guys, I am still laughing so hard my eyes are watering.
> 
> I know they are trying, but on a board like TPU this is Epic Fail.



I just don't understand what market they appeal to.  I think it is the n00b market because it has "GTX" in the name which would make a n00b think the card sounds good.


----------



## PCpraiser100 (Sep 5, 2008)

I pity the drunk XP users who believe in Nvidia's promising words behind the box of this card. FAIL!


----------



## Polaris573 (Sep 5, 2008)

PCpraiser100 said:


> I pity the drunk XP users who believe in Nvidia's promising words behind the box of this card. FAIL!



Nvidia does not make this card.


----------



## Kreij (Sep 5, 2008)

Okay, my apologies to the S3 crew. As W1zz said they are dedicated and working hard at improving the line.

I really hope that they get to the point that they can compete as that would be good for all of us.


----------



## jbunch07 (Sep 5, 2008)

Kreij said:


> Okay, my apologies to the S3 crew. As W1zz said they are dedicated and working hard at improving the line.
> 
> I really hope that they get to the point that they can compete as that would be good for all of us.



Indeed it would. I think they have potential, this card just isn't it. If they could compete with amd/nvidia we would see more competitive prices, witch I like.


----------



## PCpraiser100 (Sep 5, 2008)

Polaris573 said:


> Nvidia does not make this card.



Now I'm a n00b. Stupid me, I was skimming through the review with performance in mind.


----------



## WarEagleAU (Sep 5, 2008)

hell for $69 or lower, Ill take this for an HTPC anyday. I dont need to game with it, all I need it to do is play the movies I download. Awesome.


----------



## Solaris17 (Sep 5, 2008)

dude id but this in a heart beat and i might order one this coming paycheck maybe even 3


1 for my linux box needing a card

1 for my GF's PC to lay over for sli

and 1 for my server

so i can have the 5200 in the server as a pci back up cause god knows this will handle aero better than the 5200 pos.


----------



## MrMilli (Sep 5, 2008)

When you consider the die size, it's performance is in line with ATI & nVidia.
Considering how much smaller the design team is, that's quiet a feat.

About the price:
- it does have HDMI! 9400GT doesn't have that on stock models.
- they're selling 1000x less than ATI or nVidia so production prices tend to be higher.
- GStore has always been expensive.

W1zzard, how was your 9400GT configured?
Stock? 550 core, 1350 shaders, 400 mem & 128bit? Or faster?


----------



## Sasqui (Sep 5, 2008)

W1zzard - you say 'Low power consumption" twice in the Pros.  Intentional?

Good to see an obscure hardware review, let's hope eventually someone gives competition to the "bi-nopoly" we have now...


----------



## Mussels (Sep 5, 2008)

HDMI adaptors cost less than $20, so thats really irrelevant (and most HTPC aimed cards come with em free anyway)


----------



## Urlyin (Sep 5, 2008)

those benchmarks must have been like watching paint dry.... goes to show the up hill battle any third wheel would have


----------



## Frick (Sep 5, 2008)

How's the HD playback on this thing? Because if it should compete with anything in that range, it should be the HD3450. Then they need to add lots of features though.

Anyway, it is good news that something new is coming. I hope they will take a shot at the mid-range at least..


----------



## W1zzard (Sep 5, 2008)

Sasqui said:


> W1zzard - you say 'Low power consumption" twice in the Pros.  Intentional?



fixed. too much copy and paste


----------



## OtopC (Sep 5, 2008)

i always welcome more serious competitors but this card is a joke this is my IGP at the office


----------



## MrMilli (Sep 5, 2008)

OtopC said:


> i always welcome more serious competitors but this card is a joke this is my IGP at the office



Well this card is like 5x faster than what you have attached. Your point being?


----------



## OtopC (Sep 5, 2008)

MrMilli said:


> Well this card is like 5x faster than what you have attached. Your point being?



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


----------



## MrMilli (Sep 5, 2008)

OtopC said:


> 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.


----------



## XSAlliN (Sep 5, 2008)

> 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 (Sep 5, 2008)

MrMilli said:


> 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.
> ...



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 (Sep 5, 2008)

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


----------



## $ReaPeR$ (Sep 5, 2008)

tigger69 said:


> 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 (Sep 5, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> 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 (Sep 5, 2008)

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 (Sep 5, 2008)

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 (Sep 5, 2008)

MadClown said:


> 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 (Sep 6, 2008)

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 (Sep 6, 2008)

*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 (Sep 6, 2008)

cdawall said:


> 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 (Sep 6, 2008)

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 (Sep 6, 2008)

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 (Sep 7, 2008)

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 (Sep 7, 2008)

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 (Sep 7, 2008)

stickedy said:


> 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 (Sep 7, 2008)

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 (Sep 7, 2008)

MilkyWay said:


> 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
> 
> ...


 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 (Sep 7, 2008)

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


----------



## MilkyWay (Sep 7, 2008)

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 (Sep 7, 2008)

ShadowFold said:


> 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 (Sep 7, 2008)

MilkyWay said:


> 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.



MilkyWay said:


> 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 (Sep 8, 2008)

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?




W1zzard said:


> 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 (Sep 8, 2008)

the card is a retail card sent to me by s3


----------



## Darkrealms (Sep 9, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> the card is a retail card sent to me by s3


Thanks, that was my question.  I wanted to know if they were sending out samples or making the reviewers buy them.
Glad to see they are sending samples.  Thats one more step in the right direction for them.


----------



## Bluefox1115 (Sep 10, 2008)

Sweet! I can get about the same frame rate as the 3DMark06 CPU Tests with this card while playing COD4 @ 1680x1050!


----------

