S3 Graphics, a subsidiary of VIA, has just introduced its Chrome 5400E within the MSX (Electronics Manufacturing Exhibition) in Suzhou, China.

This new GPU is strongly focused on GPGPU. The youngest is compatible with 1.0 and OpenCL with very low consumption, is given as having the best ratio GLOP per watt of any compatible GPUs DirectX 10.1 / Shader Model 4.1 market. It will be engraved in 65 nanometers and Low Power and very compact (BGA package 23x23 mm).

ChromotionHD 2.1 technology will assist the CPU in decoding HD video streams like H.264 or VC-1 but also WMV9-HD and HD-MPEG2. Chrome 5400E will deliver DisplayPort video outputs, LVDS, Dual-Link DVI and HDMI with HDCP. It will support an audio stream HD with 7.1 channels.

It will probably wait a bit before the partners propose S3 graphics cards based on this new GPU. The latter should not offer outstanding performance, if the price is right (read low), but they could scrounge some market share to ATI and NVIDIA solutions.