Weitek goes for high end with fast chip: 132-MHz speed makes Power 9000 the board to beat. (News/Hardware) (Product Announcement)

Weitek Corp. is gearing up to capture the high end of the GUI accelerator market with a new fixed-function controller chip.

Weitek adapted the Power 9000 from one of its workstation graphics chips.

It will probably be the fastest accelerator on the market when it ships this month, outpacing even Texas Instruments' 34020 and better suited for Windows, according to Jon Peddie, publisher of PC Graphics Report, in Oakland, Calif.

Its high clock rate -- 132 MHz, compared with 110 MHz for S3's new high-end 928 chip -- allows it to display noninterlaced graphics in all resolutions, Peddie said.

In addition, the chip's bit-block transfer feature outperforms …