3DFx Vs Nvidia Vs ATI
Oct 16 '00
I think it should be said now that ATI have entered this little graphics chipset battle. For a long time I don’t think anybody could argue that 3DFx were the kings of 3D acceleration. Up until the Voodoo 3 they were certainly undisputed at the top. But now since maybe the release of the TNT2,3Dfx have more to worry about than how to spend the profits.
Looking at Nvidia first they seem to have come along way very fast. And there policy of releasing a new and better card every 6 months has done them proud. To me I think they have edged in front. The Geforce was the first card to have a GPU and the first step to over taking 3Dfx. Many people bought the Voodoo 3 3000 because it was 3Dfx and had no idea how good or bad the card was. The truth was it was better than the voodoo 2 and many people though it must be the best card for that reason as the voodoo 2 previously was the king, Nvidia had brought out the Geforce in the mean time and it was definitely a better choice of card. Nvidia strengthened their position by introducing DDR memory into video cards and the Geforce DDR became a big seller.
Nvidia look like they have more cards in the pipeline, and have caught 3Dfx off guard a little bit, as they were so used to the customers picking them automatically. I rate the Geforce 2 as the fastest card currently out, although the Radeon from ATI cuts the race very close.
Now on to 3dfx, you may think that I just don’t like 3Dfx but I have used Voodoo cards before. I just don’t think they know where they are any more. They are in shock that their market share is slowly decreasing. Looking recently they released a Voodoo 4 4500, errr well what happened to that? it never really made it anywhere, it wasn’t that good anyway and was soon superseded by the Voodoo 5 5500. So the latest offering from 3Dfx is the Voodoo 5 5500, and unfortunately it’s just not fast enough, it has one extra feature that is FSAA (full screen anti-aliasing) not worth paying more for that than the Geforce 2 GTS though i believe. They may get back into the race with the release of the 6000 card but by then the others will have got other cards out as well.
On the good side of 3Dfx, they make drivers very well, their Glide drivers are the most stable and the fastest drivers of any card. But they need a faster set of cards to get the top end of the market again. I hope they can get better cards out to spur on the battle between major companies that can only be good for the consumer.
Moving to ATI, the dark horse of the top end Market. They came from making cards that were functional and stable but not very speedy by today's comparisons to one of the quickest cards out, the Radeon. Not only that but they have a very promising roadmap ahead, not least with the Radeon MAXX on its way with 2 Radeon processors on board, how’s that for power. Once again its a 3 horse race at the top, in the middle we have all three with available cards, and S3 coming in as well. At the low end anyone is in with a shout, but the top is where the money is.
If I could have any card at all it would be the Geforce 2 GTS 64Mb closely followed by the Radeon 64Mb. If you wanted me to say which company is going to go the furthest and produce the best cards in a year or two I think Nvidia have that strength under the belt.
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Epinions.com ID:
thepanther
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Member: Stevie Orgill
Location: Burton-on-Trent, DerbyShire, UK
Reviews written: 65
Trusted by: 13 members
About Me:
Passing on my own experience from my business in Computer Hardware.
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