A Closer Look

The cooler is really nothing more than a chunk of metal with a fan spinning in the middle. As our temperature tests show later it is absolutely sufficient for this card. However, I would have preferred to see a passive cooler, which I think is very possible given the low heat output of the GPU.


The S3 Chrome 440 GTX does not need any external power source. It draws all power from the PCI-Express bus.


S3 uses GDDR3 memory chips from Samsung with the model number K4J52324QE-BC12 which are exactly the same chips the "big" boys use on many high-end cards. In order to keep the cost reasonable, the memory chips have a slower access time of 1.2 ns (= 833 MHz).


The GPU is among the smallest I have seen in recent times. It is made in a 65 nm process and has a die size of 85 mm².