DeltaChrome Hi-Def DX9 GPU tops the bill of the feature packed ApeXtreme Personal Gaming Console and Entertainment System, providing a true HDTV experience for games, video and digital photography

Fremont, California, USA and Las Vegas, Nevada, USA-January 8th, 2004 - S3 Graphics Inc., a leading supplier to the 3D graphics accelerator market, today announced that the DeltaChrome Hi-Def DX9 Graphics Processor is featured in the ApeXtreme Personal Gaming and Home Entertainment Console, launched today at the Consumer Electronics Show 2004 and at a private press event in Las Vegas by VIA Technologies, Inc., and Apex Digital, Inc., the foremost manufacturer and marketer of consumer electronics in the USA.

“We are very excited to be partnering with Apex Digital on this ground breaking product.” said Dr Gerry Liu, CFO and V.P Marketing of S3Graphics Inc. “The ApeXtreme will be an unique personal gaming console offering a Hi-Def media experience - fully leveraging DeltaChrome’s DX9 programmable 3D gaming features and technologies way beyond 3D media capabilities.”

As the first product based on the VIA Glory Personal Gaming Console platform, a dedicated interoperable platform of key VIA and S3 Graphics technologies aimed at reducing product development time and cost, the ApeXtreme will set many new records in the electronic entertainment industry, being the first game console to be supported by over 2500 games titles at the time of launch, and the first to enable Hi-Definition display and playback of most popular formats of digital photography and motion video.

“The ApeXtreme takes console gaming to the highest level yet by offering the PC gaming experience at living room console prices,” said Steve Brothers, President, Apex Digital, Inc. “While other companies are experimenting with the Personal Gaming Console concept, we are making it happen thanks to the VIA Glory Personal Gaming Console Platform.”

DeltaChrome Hi-Def DX9 GPU

The S3 Graphics DeltaChrome’s powerful DirectX 9.0, Hi Precision programmable architecture featuring 8 Pixel Shader pipelines and 4 Vertex Shaders has positioned the ApeXtreme as the most powerful games console in existence, providing graphics features and performance far exceeding any current game console by an extreme margin. DeltaChrome’s Hi-Def native HDTV output enables users to experience richly textured and precision rendered PC game titles at 720p, 1080i or 1080p using YCbCr component video outputs, while the Chromotion programmable video engine brings features like per pixel adaptive de-interlacing to the big screen for a multitude of video media formats.

DeltaChrome is also setting new standards in performance and low power as the only DX9 GPU running at full performance at under 5 Watts power consumption, making it the graphics of choice for the discerning notebook user. DeltaChrome is also available as a PC upgrade AGP graphics card.

XP86 Architecture

The ApeXtreme’s XP86™ architecture differentiates it from all other game consoles. Running Microsoft® Windows® XP Embedded operating system on a 1.4GHz VIA C3 x86-compatible processor enables fast boot and inherent immunity from hacking and virus attack while providing compatibility with the world’s most popular and familiar software environment. The use of Microsoft’s WinXP embedded operating system environment and the support of a huge number of applications and over 2500 game titles makes the ApeXtreme unique in the console market place. The user friendly front end interface automatically detects and plays DVD and VCD movies, and audio CDs, and performs slide shows for digital pictures and supports simple drop in and play game start up.

Gaming Console - Evolved

The ApeXtreme represents the next generation in personal gaming. With 256MB main memory and minimum of 64MB dedicated video memory the system has over 4 times the memory any other console. With DeltaChrome’s 8 Pipelines the peak fill rate can approach 2.4 Giga Pixels per second and can operate on 1.2 Giga Vertex shader instructions per second, which sets new performance standards in this market segment. With over 20 GB/s total memory bandwidth it is over 3 times faster than any currently available console.

About Apex Digital Inc.

Headquartered in Ontario, California, Apex Digital Inc. is the USA’s leading manufacturer and marketer of DVD home entertainment players and a fast-growing supplier of analog and digital televisions. Founded in 1999 by David Ji and Ancle Hsu, privately held Apex Digital, Inc. expects to exceed US$1 billion in sales for 2003. The company’s products are carried in over 20,000 retail outlets nationwide. For more information about Apex Digital, Inc. go to http://www.apexdigitalinc.com.

About S3 Graphics, Inc.

S3 Graphics, Inc., a VIA Technologies joint venture company, is a leading supplier to the 3D enabled PC graphics market it pioneered. Today, S3 Graphics ships low power, high performance, Commercial Grade 3D graphics sub-systems to top tier notebook manufacturers. In addition, S3 Graphics integrates market-leading chipset technology from VIA Technologies, Inc. into shared memory architecture products for the high volume, value PC market. Headquartered in Fremont, California, S3 Graphics has a long-term commitment to top performance, quality and state-of-the-art features for desktop and mobile applications. Additional information can be found at the Company’s website at http://www.s3graphics.com.