S3 4300E HD Graphics Chip for Embedded Systems

S3 is coming up with a small chip designed to bring DX10 and HD video processing to embedded systems that have drastic thermal requirements. Going into such a niche allows it to somewhat escape from the pressure from NVIDIA and AMD. They mention that the chip supports DX10, but I would be very surprised if it was actually capable of offering decent gaming performance. Let’s wait and see if any benchmarks pop up.

If you don’t know, S3 used to be a big player in the graphics industry, but has been outpaced by the two remaining high-end players.

S3 4300E specifications

• Fanless!
• 300Mhz
• GDDR2 (500Mhz) or GDDR3 memory (650Mhz)
• HDMI/HDCP support
• HD Video Engine (WM9-HD, H.264, MPEG2-HD, DivX, AVS)