The third player in the x86 market isn't usually the company that often ends up in the limelight. Yet, VIA is making innovative products that really deserve a spot on the front page. It looks like VIA is getting pro-active in the world of PR - after receiving information that nVidia is interested in purchasing up to a $300 million share in VIA, we received news about the release of P710-HD.

This daughter card is consisted out of an S3 Graphics Chrome 4300E embedded-GPU, 256 MB DDR2 memory and DVI/HDMI connectors, intended for use with the VIA EPIA-P710 platform. Since the Pico-ITXe form factor is roughly the size of a business card, this product opens up many doors for this fledgling Taiwanese manufacturer.

What makes this daughterboard exciting, VIA claims, is the GPU feature-set. According to VIA's press release: "Cutting edge Hi-Def playback of resolutions up to and beyond 1080p." If we read this correctly, the P710-HD should be capable of reproducing "Beyond HD" specification - XHD - 2560x1440 [1440p] videos. We asked VIA about this, but didn't receive an answer at press time. The moment we receive it, we'll do an update of the story.