VIA takes on graphics market with S3

VIA is to make a play for the graphics card market with its S3 graphics division, a joint venture between VIA and previous S3 owner SonicBlue.

VIA is to make a play for the graphics card market with its S3 graphics division, a joint venture between VIA and previous S3 owner SonicBlue.

VIA, which last week outlined its 2001 processor and motherboard road map, will launch a mobile graphics card called SuperSavage this month. It has also previewed three upcoming desktop cards.

SuperSavage is a 128bit 3D chip that runs at 143Mhz. It comes with user-selectable power modes to extend battery life, ships with up to 64Mb of onboard Ram and is AGP 4x compatible. It is available with either double data rate (DDR) or single data rate onboard memory.

In addition, VIA and Sonic Blue are working on three additional desktop cards scheduled for release by the fourth quarter this year.

Codenamed Zoetrope, Paramount and Columbia, they will run at 166Mhz, 150Mhz and 300Mhz respectively, with support for DirectX 8 and DDRam.

Zoetrope and Paramount will be manufactured at 0.15micron, while Columbia will be made at the smaller size of 0.13micron to reduce power consumption, heat build up and cost.

Separately, ELSA is preparing to drop the price of its GeForce3-based Gladiac 920 graphics card by up to $150.

Also published in Computer Reseller News