ruthan wrote on 2025-02-06, 23:56:These datasheets are not always right. because board revisions etc, X3100 for sure. […]
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These datasheets are not always right. because board revisions etc, X3100 for sure.
In in text is
S410-PCIE: Range of PCI-Express graphics cards from ATi and Nvidia
And PCI-E graphics card does not means that card is not on board. Its like ISA soundcards on boards without ISA slots. There were Nvidia igpu as part nforce chipsets and in case of these industrial boards could be everything glue to everything, probably not, but its possible.
Well, like I said, the datasheet says this is an Intel 965GM motherboard, and the 965GM chipset contains an X3100 IGP. It is unlikely that they got the chipset and integrated graphics wrong on their datasheet. For it to have an nvidia graphics chip it would also have to be an nforce 6xx or 7xx chipset, which wasn't very common at all for boards of this level. I don't believe any boards have ever used half of two chipsets just to provide an nvidia IGP on an Intel chipset.
It's absolutely true that some boards will integrate higher performance discrete graphics utilizing PCI-E or other interfaces, but that is very expensive and uncommon. I had mentioned that in this part of my reply:
There were no IGPs from Nvidia, ATI or S3\VIA that were used on Intel chipsets at this time because Intel's GMA chips were reliable, cheap, cool-running and plenty powerful enough for most things. Some laptops and all-in-ones would have a Geforce 8400M of some type since they couldn't have PCI-E expansion slots, but that isn't what you've got here.
To clarify why this isn't what we're looking at: There is no VRAM visible on the motherboard, the datasheet makes no mention of onboard dedicated video chips or memory other than the X3100 (which uses system memory), and the passive heatsink is far too small for any Nvidia or AMD dedicated graphics chips of the time that would have been worth using over the X3100 (8400M GT, etc.).
ruthan wrote on 2025-02-06, 23:56:+for S3 chip - well i googled, there is some small Chrontel chip, Chrontel supposed to be from S3 or VIA ex S3 Chrome creation […]
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+for S3 chip - well i googled, there is some small Chrontel chip, Chrontel supposed to be from S3 or VIA ex S3 Chrome creation and saw some pixel fill rate and resolution info so
On chip is CH7317B-TF https://www.chrontel.com/product/detail/30
, it looked like some sort of at least 2d videocard , maybe some server IPMI (but not sure i saw remote control in datasheets at all) like Aspeed.. But when googled a bit further and it seems just some DAC.. So be honest im not sure what is difference between RAM DAC and RGB DAC is some existed and these datasheets summaries are already too lowlevel for, i never read some RAMDAC one, so its hard to compare:
https://www.alldatasheet.com/html-pdf/1706761 … CH7317B-TF.html
From that page: "Configuration through Intel® SDVO Opcode[2] "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Digital_Video_Out
... in fact, there is even a dedicated part of that page about Intel X3000 series IGPs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Digital_ … o_Out#GMA_X3000
Chrontel is a maker of various types of DACs and converters to go from video sources to video outputs. I don't believe there is any connection between them and S3 other than on any S3 cards that happen to use Chrontel RAMDACs. This particular one says it is designed to use an Intel proprietary interface to output a VGA signal (basically). Without digging into it much, I would guess that it is being used to provide a second VGA signal for the DVI-I port (since the one on this board has the extra pins for VGA). Since it is an Intel technology, it only makes sense that it is connected to the Intel IGP listed in multiple places on the motherboard's datasheet.
It's a cool little board, but it almost definitely has Intel X3100 integrated graphics. Nothing wrong with that at all when you consider what it was intended for.
