JOEL JOHNSON — Tech Report has a massive twenty-three page dissection of the new DeltaChrome S8 Nitro video card, S3’s first entry into the high-stakes PC 3D accelerator market. It won’t be on these shores for another few months, and it’s certainly not going to stand up performance-wise to the even the mid-range cards from ATI or Nvidia, but it does signal a strong start for a company that only recently decided to take a stab at this cutthroat market. I’ll wager that the S8 Nitro will not make much of a splash when it hits the gamer scene, but could see some impressive sales to the OEM market, where a price even a few dollars cheaper can add up to big savings for companies like Dell and HP. It might not be fast enough for Johnny Counterstrike, but it will accelerate The Sims 2 for your mom just fine.
The real trick, of course, will be seeing if S3 can get a better, faster, stronger product to market to compete with the new mid-range cards from ATI and Nvidia that are just around the corner.
