PowerColor, a subsidiary of Tul Corp. and a well-known maker of graphics cards, recently started to supply its clients S3 DeltaChrome S8-based graphics cards. The products at this point are available only in Tokyo, Japan, but the move outlines that S3 does plan to bring its DeltaChrome-series into the market.

DeltaChrome – Finally Here

S3 DeltaChrome S8 is the company’s performance-mainstream graphics processor with 8 rendering pipelines featuring one TMU per each, advanced pixel and vertex shaders beyond DirectX 9.0 specs, some memory bandwidth saving technologies, multi-display capabilities, 400MHz RAMDAC, integrated TV-Out controller, TMDS transmitter and so on, support for 480p / 720p / 1080i / 1080p HDTV resolutions via component (YPbPr) output, 480i standard TV output via S-video and composite output, programmable video engine and AGP 8x support.

Akiba PC Hotline web-site reports about PowerColor’s DeltaChrome S8 graphics cards with 256MB of DDR SDRAM memory and D-Sub, DVI-I as well as TV-Out connectors. While the reference design for the DeltaChrome S8 assumed 300MHz/650MHz core-clocks for VPU/memory, the device from PowerColor features 250MHz/500MHz speeds.

The PowerColor’s DeltaChrome S8 product is priced between $130 and $150.

This is the first time when a DeltaChrome chip emerged for sale. This means that the product is available roughly 1.5 years after the initial announcement in early 2003 and a little bit less than 2 years after the first DirectX 9.0 supporting graphics card – ATI RADEON 9700 PRO – started to sell.

It is not clear whether S3 DeltaChrome-based products will arrive to stores in Europe or the USA.

For more information about S3 DeltaChrome graphics processors, please check our reviews titled “The Return of S3: DeltaChrome Graphics Card Review” and “S3 DeltaChrome S8 Gets Nitro Acceleration: Review of the Revamped S8”.

GammaChrome – The Next Big Thing for S3 Graphics?

For S3 Graphics the DeltaChrome is not something the company pins a lot of hopes on. Later this year the firm is expected to unleash the GammaChrome lineup of visual processing units that will be more powerful compared to the DeltaChrome and will be intended for PCI Express platforms. S3 Graphics’ GammaChrome-based products are expected to be available Q3 2004 in retail add-in-card as well as OEM desktop/notebook personal computers. S3 decided to refrain from sharing any of the GammaChrome features and specifications besides saying that the chip will feature even more advanced video capabilities than the predecessor.

Just like NVIDIA and ATI S3 Graphics is currently developing a special improved compiler for shaders to incorporate it into its drivers. The new compiler will bring a performance advantage to the DeltaChrome chips, but its main target is the GammaChrome architecture. It is possible to expect that GammaChrome will take a very substantial advantage of the compiler in addition to generally revamped architecture.