Consumer Electronics Show 2004 Day 2 - VIA's new Gaming Console
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 10, 2004 5:09 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Under the Hood
From the specs alone you should realize that we're not talking about a very powerful gaming machine, but if you compare it to the Celeron 733 and the NV2A in the Xbox the system isn't exactly gutless. The motherboard in the ApeXtreme is produced by VIA and occupies the right side of the chassis.
On the motherboard there are three major chips - the VIA C3 processor, the CM400 North Bridge, and the VIA DeltaChrome S8 GPU. The CM400 North Bridge supports up to DDR400 memory, although Apex will determine whether they will use DDR333 or DDR400 memory in the shipping product. The CM400 also features a 200MHz FSB connection to the C3 processor, offering 1.6GB/s of bandwidth between the CPU and North Bridge.
The interesting chip is the VIA DeltaChrome S8 GPU, which is the same GPU that is beginning to ship on add-in cards within a month. The GPU is an 8 pipeline design much like the R300, and features full DirectX 9.0 pixel and vertex shader pipelines. The GPU features support for both 24-bit and 16-bit floating point values in the pixel shader pipeline. The GPU does not have support for the upcoming Pixel Shader 3.0 spec, which is a part of DirectX 9.1. The GPU on the motherboard is clocked at the same speed as the add-in cards at 300MHz, and it can be paired with anywhere from 64 - 256MB of on-board DDR memory.
The current prototype features 64MB of DDR memory on-board although the shipping version may feature more depending on the market price of memory. The memory clock on the desktop DeltaChrome S8 is 300MHz and although it could be that high on the ApeXtreme, the final decision will come closer to the shipping date. The GPU has a single 128-bit memory controller to drive up to 8 chips on the board (the motherboard itself cannot physically accommodate more than 8 chips).
The VIA CM400 chipset does actually have an integrated S3 graphics core that offers significantly less performance than the DeltaChrome S8; an integrated graphics version of the ApeXtreme may eventually be launched as more of a Home Theater PC box but Apex may want to re-evaluate how 'Xtreme' it is after that.
The ApeXtreme is at least a couple of months away from retail availability and during that time a number of the specifications may change. Apex is shooting for a MSRP of $399 for the ApeXtreme at launch.
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pluty - Monday, December 27, 2004 - link
why is it, that when playing madden 2004-5, you can't use plays you've chosen for your personal playbook in the coaching mode, and you can only use the chicago bears playbook. I like to call my plays and watch the computer run them. any suggestions?franguinho - Thursday, January 22, 2004 - link
its an interesting idea but poorly implemented IMO... id much rather buy a gamepad and half decent graphics card and play PC games on an actual PC... (which in fact is what i do).yanon - Tuesday, January 20, 2004 - link
I think this thing can become a hit if someone hack this and turned it into an all-purpose player which supports divx/xvid/rmvb, multi-regions dvd (with region-free installed), moderate pc gaming, TiVo, digital audio player (with winamp installed), digital photography, and web browser.othercents - Thursday, January 15, 2004 - link
Check out this website about the Discover technology behind the ApeXtreme.http://www.discoverconsole.com/default.htm
There are supposed to be higher end consoles available at the same time as Apex releases theirs. Some of the consoles are P4 3.0ghz with GeforceFX video cards. So there should not be any problem playing any game released today and since they are going to be upgradable you should be able to play newer games also.
For those who don't want to use their Main TV, I would just like to remind you that most homes have at least 3 or 4 TVs. I actually have a Wall Projector just for my game consoles and movies and then a regular TV for every day use.
Regards,
Other
quanta - Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - link
I would rather build my mini-ITX PC cubes. As I recall, VIA CPUs have even worse floating point perforance than K6, which make important differences for every 3D game made since Quake I. Although many graphics operations are handled by video cards, CPU floating point processing are still being used for things like 3D audio, game physics engine, and AI. Unfortunately, the C3 still have extra weak FPU, cutting down potential frame rate on (almost) every game.Idoxash - Monday, January 12, 2004 - link
Great idea and really kewl if they can get other console gaming companys to make some games useing that much poweful gpu. However the cost is high. You can build a much faster system for that cost if you wanted to play just PC games. It looks as if this thing can hook to a monitor? Such as a computer one if so thatya be better then a TV at least.HRM, Good luck to VIA and Apex all I can say!
--Idoxash
HammerFan - Sunday, January 11, 2004 - link
5 posts in a row... damn :Ptw1164 - Sunday, January 11, 2004 - link
I like the idea, but the price is a little high. You can get a new dell for that price, but alot faster. I see this device quickly falling behind in games.KillaKilla - Sunday, January 11, 2004 - link
Is CES already covered in the Day One report? I'd a thunk there'd be more there... damn.Abraxas - Sunday, January 11, 2004 - link
if they can get the price down, it looks like a good bet for a divx player :) any other divx capable dvd players on the market? this looks like the best ive seen.