Introduction

S3 Graphics is a graphics chips company in California which was founded in 1989. Over the years they produced numerous chipsets like the legendary S3 Trio and S3 Savage GPUs. They were bought by VIA in 2004 and their graphics knowledge was integrated into VIA's IGP chipsets. Their recent line of discrete GPUs is called the "Chrome 400" Series which features DirectX 10.1, Blu-Ray/HD-DVD decoding and HDMI+HDCP support.

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.