Uhm.....am I missing something? Isn't the V5 5500 out?

[Pete]

Not to be too instigative, but has anyone actually used the 5500 in anything other than Quake 3? Or are we just fawning over the GeForce b/c it rules in the only real benchmark out there? Besides, consider the fact that the V5 is running at 166MHz core & mem while the GTS is blazing at 200MHz/400MHz core/mem. Not bad. Yes, their release was way too late, but it shows they're at least competitive hardware-wise.

I'm really excited about Rampage, I hope 3dfx can once again live up to everyone's very high expectations.

Of course, I'm typing all this on my lowly Xpert 128 .

 

[Olorin]

I hope the Rampage pans out for competition's sake. It seems to me that the GTS MX is going to steal alot of 3dfx's thunder at retail, so they better not be late again or it may be all over. The V4 might not help them much at retail unless they can lower the price; the people buying the 3dfx cards at retail based on brand recognition have probably also heard of "GeForce", but won't necessarily realize that the MX has only half the pipelines and half the memory bandwidth of a real GeForce2. Alot of people have also heard of "Creative" and they have a large retail presence, so 3dfx could be in big trouble if the MX boards are selling for $150, especially since the MX boards go on sale in a couple weeks and the V4 is nowhere to be found.

But more on topic, Pete, it does seem to me that the awesome performance of the GeForce 2 in Q3 has clouded the objectivity of some reviewers. I think people would be suprised how little most people care about frame rates - just look at the console FPS's, they seem to have terrible frame rates but few people care. The retail buyer wants max compatibilty with both their hardware and software; they don't care and probably wouldn't even know what you're talking about if you try to tell them that they get higher "frame rates" with so-and-so's card. But more to the point not all gamers care about high frame rates either, but the reviews are all slanted that way. I upgraded from a TNT to a GeForce2 so I could run in higher resolutions, not for higher frame rates.

 

[Prodigy^]

good point Pete.....there was a test at a Flying Sim site, and they crowned the Voodoo5 5500 as the supreme winner....screw Quake3 I say!