News Via's S3 Graphics Tries Discrete Graphics, Again

In the wake of the news that the GFX giants are pumping up the ram, it emerges that S3 are ViRGE-ing (pardon the pun - it had to be done ) on re-entering the discrete graphics arena again. ExtremeTech gives us the low down:

Via's S3 Graphics division will attempt a comeback in the standalone graphics market through a new line of discrete graphics chips, company executives said.

Via's latest GammaChrome chip, the PCI Express-based GammaChrome S18 PCIe, will be on display at the Intel Developer Forum this week in San Francisco. Although both Nvidia and ATI have blanketed the graphics market with a diverse range of offerings mixing price and performance, S3 executives said their first target will be the ATI X600 and the X600 derivative.

S3 hopes to entice customers interested in the value graphics space, with an emphasis on features like full 1080p HDTV. Company executives acknowledged, however, that they'll have to work on improving the reputation of its graphics chips, which have suffered in reviews and were late to market to boot, executives said.

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They've certainly got their work cut out for them...

 

It wont work, even if it's a decent performer because to keep up with Ati/Nvidia infrastructure of product and driver releases will cost VIA too much to get appreciable returns, not to mention changing the whole enthusiast communities idea of VIAs S3 GPUs and advertising a brand name to compete with Geforce and Radeon.

VIA either need to change the S3 name into something else to relaunch their product or create something in a neiche market like the EPIA products to really get a hold.

 

It's too bad that the S3 name got seperated from the Diamond name in the bankruptcy breakup thing....
(for the youngsters - DiamondMM (MultiMedia) used to own S3, Rio, Supra Modems, and the Viper name.)
If Via owned Diamond^tm, DiamondMM^tm, and Viper^tm it would be easier to sell discreet graphics cards.

 

Ah, that takes me back to my first PC, with its Dimond Sleath. That card still in use, hehe.

Blu

 

I remember the old Diamond Vipers. Had one of those playing things like Need for Speed on it. I had it around the time of the big Voodoo era and it was Voodoo vs. Diamond - sounds like a particular rival thats out today.

 

I still own a PCI Diamond Stealth S220, 4meg of 10ns ram. Coupled with my Voodoo 1, 4meg of 83Mhz ram. Tis a shame they dont rebrand it under the diamond name anymore.

 

I still have an S3 trio 2mb in daily use

 

a company did buy the diamond name for video cards. That's all they bought though, they are releasing ati and nvidia based cards. via owns all the tech with the purchase of S3. Philips bought rio, but I can't remember if they sold it already or not, and some other company bought supra. Right before Diamond got sold off, the only things making money were the supra (modems) and rio.