Do that Voodoo that You Do....
Written: Dec 03 '00 (Updated Dec 05 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Wide range of games. Fast, Great image quality.
Cons: Slow 2d, no windowed OpenGL, runs HOT
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| TheEngine's Full Review: 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP |
By now most of us know that 3DFX has left the video retail market. After losing the graphics card wars to Nvidia, 3DFX's flagship, the 6000 never made it out. What their plans are now remains to be seen. Some say they will produce OEM products, video game machine hardware or who knows....that's not what this is about.
Voodoo 5500 AGP 64meg Video card.
Its BIG. For starters, some may have a bit of a problem installing this in smaller or cramped cases. I have a EN 7237 case, and the card just clears the top of my IDE controller ports. If you install this card, do your IDE drive cables first, THEN the video card. Otherwise you'll have to take the video card out to get at the IDE connectors.
Its HOT. It runs warm...real warm. I ended up putting extra cooling in my case to make sure everything was happy and there were no "hot pockets" building up due to the heat this card gives off. It comes with 2 moderate heatsink/fan combos that seem to do well to cool the 2 graphic chips on the card.
Its NICE. I like it. I'm writing this review on a Dual 800 Pentium machine with a Geforce Ultra. Behind me sits my 1ghz Athlon machine with the 5500. All my game play is on the 5500. Most everyone on the planet thinks a graphic card is (censored) unless it runs Quake 3 at 344,333 frames a second. This card will run Quake 3. And it will run every other game you throw at it. Tribes, M1 Tank Platoon, Unreal Tourney, Falcon 4.0, Mechwarrior 4, Starsiege, and the list goes on and on and on.
3D Graphic quality is great. With the ability to run 4x Full Screen Anti Aliasing, you can really clean up a game while running at lower resolutions. I've found that most games I play, FSAA is pointless, as the action is too fast or I'm too involved in the gameplay to stop and say "Hey, that wall really does not have any jagged edges". I've never found myself winning in CTF or Deathmatch because my screen was less jagged.
This card does have its downside. The 2d is only average. Image quality is fine, the text is sharp and readable, and colors are clear and accurate. But in graphic applications, this card lags way behind the Geforce model line. OpenGL in a window is a painful undertaking, as running the OpenGL benchmark Specviewperf will show. This pretty much makes the card a "gamers only" option, since the Geforce and now the Radeon cards can run graphic applications much faster.
But I bought the card for games. And games is what it does. I could opt to put in another Geforce, but with the wide range of games the Voodoo 5500 can run, the great speed and image quality, I'll keep it. It seems to get along with my Via based A7V as well too, making for a very stable Athlon system.
So if you want a few extra FPS in the Bunnies on crack hop fest that is Quake 3, get a Geforce....if you want to play every other game ever made, get a Voodoo 5500.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 207.00
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Epinions.com ID:
TheEngine
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Location: Chicago, IL
Reviews written: 33
Trusted by: 8 members
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