S3 Graphics

Going back in time, just imagine you are Dr Who (that is if you like to watch Dr Who series) and you are sent back to the 1990s. What do you think the world is offering you in terms of computer graphics loaded into a personal computer (pc)? You do have a few choices (companies)but not much. One of which is S3, the second is Nvidia and the third would be Diamond. Many people would go for the choice of S3 because it is cheap and cheerful. I was one of them.

Back in the days, when the first version of Pentium was at the top of the chart (before Pentium 2 was announced), S3 was really a good buy. It offers graphics card at a reasonable price and many people went to purchase it. S3 was then the Intel Extreme graphics card now. The difference is that S3 was an add-on PCI card while Intel extreme graphics are onboard graphics. Back then you do have DVVM graphics (onboard graphics) but many people will choose to get an add-on graphics. I remember when I had my Pentium Pro 180 with Jetway motherboard, I had the S3 Virge 3D (4MB) installed in it.

You have to remember that back then, in 1996, 4MB of graphics card memory is heaven to many. Many computers were running on 1MB of memory at that time. Look at the present, you do have 128MB as the lowest minimum memory requirement nowdays for games and applications although servers tend to use only around 32MB of graphics memory as they don't need graphics too much. I am using 512MB of graphics memory right now and I feel that I should have 1GB or more but it is just too costly to do so.

S3 is quite well known to be a computer creating energy efficient graphics cards all along. Well, after its peak days, it went through some turbulence and now it is back!!! I am so happy that S3 is back!!! After looking through its product, I think I might use one of their graphics card for day to day applications as it is very energy efficient. Although S3 is no match for AMD or Nvidia, they might cut their lead as more people are looking towards energy efficient graphics cards nowdays. The problem with present day graphics cards is that they consume a lot of electricity (around 155W for a Nvidia 9800GT X2).

If S3 is able to create a graphics card similar to the Nvidia 8800GTX with 50 percent reduction on the electricity consumption, I will get one for myself. S3 rules!!!