S3 Graphics Chrome 400 is a computer graphics chip made by VIA. It was the successor of S3 Chrome S20 series.

History

VIA planned the production of two new graphics chips, Chrome 440 and 430, by the end of 2007. The Chrome 460 supported

DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct", ...

10 and adopted a

90 nanometer The 90 nm process refers to the level of MOSFET ( CMOS) fabrication process technology that was commercialized by the 2003–2005 timeframe, by leading semiconductor companies like Toshiba, Sony, Samsung, IBM, Intel, Fujitsu, TSMC, El ...

process, while the Chrome 430 was to support DirectX 10.1 using a

65 nanometer The 65 nm process is an advanced lithographic node used in volume CMOS ( MOSFET) semiconductor fabrication. Printed linewidths (i.e. transistor gate lengths) can reach as low as 25 nm on a nominally 65 nm process, while the pitc ...

process. The Chrome 400 series was codenamed 'Destination'. Both chips were to be manufactured by Fujitsu. Volume production was expected to start before the end of the year. The 430 GT was released on 2008-03-20 in the US market, while 440 GTX was released on 2008-05-30.

Features

The production models were made in 65 nm process, support DirectX 10.1, and use

PCI Express PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common ...

2.0 interface. Chrome engine supported variable-length decoding, and dual-stream

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

playback (440 GTX). The display unit included two dual-link DVI transmitters with integrated

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller, ...

(audio pass-through) and

HDCP High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) is a form of digital copy protection developed by Intel Corporation to prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across connections. Types of connections include DisplayPort ...

, an integrated dual-channel

LVDS Low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS), also known as TIA/EIA-644, is a technical standard that specifies electrical characteristics of a differential, serial signaling standard. LVDS operates at low power and can run at very high speeds ...

transmitter, an integrated TV/HDTV encoder, and support for two analog CRTs. 440 GTX ran at 725 MHz core speed.

Chrome 400 ULP

ULP was the mobile line for the Chrome 400. 430 ULP includes features in 430 GT, while 435 ULP and 440 ULP includes features in 440 GTX. This product was released on 2008-09-24.

Reception

In ''TechPowerUp'''s review of the 800/800 MHz core/memory version of S3 Graphics Chrome 440 GTX 256 MB video card, its performance was observed to be in the range of Radeon 3450 and GeForce 8500 GT. At a 1024×768 resolution, it was slightly slower than GeForce 9400 GT. Performance per dollar was the lowest of the list. Power consumption is on par with those products.

References

External links

S3 Graphics Chrome 400 page
{{S3 Graphics Chips Graphics cards