[ Thanks to David
Pitlyuk for this link. ]
“As the battle between the two titans of the graphics
accelerator industry continues, we are enjoying the fruits of their
labors. When we say the two titans we most certainly mean 3dfx and
nVidia. Technology has never moved this fast since the beginning of
the Intel/AMD war. It’s true, in almost every case of industry
rivalries, there are always 2 that stand out from the rest – a
champion and challenger. AMD and Intel for desktop processors,
Western Digital and Maxtor for consumer/cheap hard drives, and the
list goes on and on. We can’t say that this a bad thing, if there
is competition for leadership, there will be better, cheaper
products because of it. This can be applied to 3dfx’s current race
with Nvidia. Although prices are not dropping on new products,
speed and features are going up. If you remember a few weeks ago,
we posted a Voodoo5 5500 preview after our visit to a 3dfx office
here in Texas. This review is the successor of that preview, we
will address some of the things we theorized on in the preview and
we will introduce you to all the things Voodoo that we haven’t
mentioned in the preview. That’s why this will not be a SUPER long
review, the 10 page preview covered such things as FSAA and
T-Buffer effects so we don’t have to re write it on the review,
thank god for previews =).”
“The Voodoo 5 5500 AGP is 3dfx’s newest 3D accelerator and
it has a lot of potential and expectations to fulfill. With gaming
becoming more realistic than ever, hardware support is not a
commodity, it’s a necessity. To me it seems that 3dfx has
altered their philosophy lately. When the Voodoo3 was released,
3dfx wanted speed, speed, and more speed. Remember, “framerate is
king”? With that thought, 3dfx excluded high resolution textures
and 32-bit rendering from their Voodoo3, along with many other
things. This hit a big nerve with reviewers and gamers alike. It
was NVidia fans’ best knock for 3dfx fans. While some people
disputed the quality increase from 16 to 32-bit’s, others said it
made the world of difference. This is still an opinion question
that will never end. 16-bits equaled faster rendering and that’s
what mattered to 3dfx. Now, it seems that quality has taken a new
priority to 3dfx. The Voodoo5 5500 AGP is loaded with features that
enhance visual quality and speed alike. What is advertised most
with the Voodoo5 is FSAA, or should I say the critically acclaimed
FSAA?”