I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark
and assume you know who 3dfx is, at least in the slightest. 3dfx
has grown from a small company which was only known by hardware
gamers/computer enthusiasts to almost a household name for even casual
gamers/computer users. If you've ever played a game which required
a 3D accelerator and you didn't have one, you were probably introduced
to 3D accelerators either by a friend/family member (most likely the
13-year old computer wiz in the family) or if you were unlucky, a
salesperson told you about them and told you how "good" that
S3 Trio64V runs! The point is, 3dfx has been making great cards
for the past two years and are becoming very well known when it comes to
graphics cards in the PC market. If you want some more background
on 3dfx, read over the next bit, otherwise skip to the bottom.
When 3dfx originally came out with the Voodoo Graphics card in 1996, they were
relatively unknown. 3D was virtually non existent on the PC and thus the
Voodoo Graphics chip was only for the elite, for those who could afford
it and wanted bragging rights to have the best money could buy. At
this time, 3DFX had pretty much the only 3D card that was actually worth
something, and it was VERY fast at that time also. 3DFX became
well known within a very small community of hardcore gamers and hardware
enthusiasts as the only manufacturer who actually made 3D cards that
were worth something.
Two years later, they released the
Voodoo2 card, with double the performance of the original Voodoo, SLI
capability and at that time, the best image quality you could possibly
hope for. This is when 3DFX started to become really well known to
people outside of that small community. The Voodoo2 has been and
still is a very viable solution to 3D gaming, especially if you have an
SLI setup. 3DFX then released the Banshee card, 3DFX's first
successful 2D/3D
single card solution (I won't even bother mentioning the Rush) and while not
living up to the hype, it was certainly a
great deal especially for lower end systems.
Today, "3DFX" has changed to
"3dfx" and is focused on branching out even further into the
homes of people who don't even know what 3D acceleration is. What I mean
by this, is they are trying to appeal to even the casual computer users
who only upgrade their computers rarely and are easily influenced by
good marketing. On a business standpoint, 3dfx is doing the right
thing to make money and increase their user base, but are there products good
enough for the hardware core gamer who wants the best they can possibly
get? We'll explore that issue as we progress.
Now on to the
review! In this review, we will be taking a look
at 3dfx's current high-end Voodoo3, the 3500 TV AGP card. It also looks
as if this card will be their high-end card for at least another few
months, as their code-named "Napalm" (Voodoo4) chip has been
delayed until next February at the earliest. So if you want a Voodoo3,
now is the time to get it because prices are quite low due to continued pressure from NVIDIA and their GeForce 256 chip.
Anyway, back to the 3500 TV. This
card sports a 183MHz core/memory speed whereas the Voodoo3 2000 has a 143MHz clock and
the Voodoo3 3000 has a 166MHz clock
speed. However, aside from the high clock speed, this card also
has quite a few extra TV/Video related features not found on the 2000 or
3000 cards. Read to find out if these additions are worth the
money.
