V3 3500: Good, Bad, & the Ugly
Written: May 09 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fast, feature rich, great gaming bundle
Cons: 16-bit color, 16 MB RAM
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| blusavana's Full Review: 3dfx Voodoo3 3500, (16 MB) AGP Video Card |
The card: 3dfx's Voodoo 3 3500 TV AGP. It has 16 Megabytes of RAM, blazing speed, and tons of nifty looking special effects in games. I love this card, but I know it's downfall. Although retail says roughly $240, you can find this card for much much less, considering that the Voodoo5 5500 AGP is right around the corner.
The extras: the bundle with the card is nothing short of amazing. You get Unreal, Unreal Tournament, WinDVD, Ulead Video editor. Unreal, UT, and WinDVD are full versions. You get a pod for the input/output of video, which is really nice so you don't have to keep plugging and unplugging straight from the board. You get a TV tuner and if you are in the United States, you also get an FM Tuner.
The good: Many of the game developers keep in mind 3dfx, Nvidia is also a hot property, but some games don't like Nvidia like they do 3dfx/Voodoo products. The card having TV out for big screen gaming and the ability to do fairly high resolutions for games is great.
The bad: Having 16 Megabytes of RAM is a bit small, especially compared to the next generation video cards. Doubled with the high MSRP of $240.00, it makes sense to wait it out for the new cards to come out.
The ugly: The big drawback to this wonderful card is this: 16-bit color only. When this card came out, not too many games supported 32-bit color, now, 32-bit color is starting to come out more, but the best this card can do is 16-bit color.
Verdict: As prices are coming down for this card and all the next generation video cards are coming out soon, this card is great for an upper entry level gaming machine. With Unreal and Unreal Tournament bundled with the card, you'll have hours of fun playing these games (especially UT), I know I have. Plus, if you have a DVD-ROM, you get WinDVD to play your movies on. Although I plan to get another video card soon, I'll have the Voodoo 3 3500 TV AGP card for a long time.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
blusavana
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Member: Rosa Grimm
Location: Ashland, KY
Reviews written: 121
Trusted by: 8 members
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