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 The Voodoo 3d card has a cooling fan for its high intensity output.
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A world of 3D. A world made with polygons, spheres, and lines. Only one thing can do the complex calculations in less time than a eye blink. That would be the 3D Graphics Card.
There are many types of 3D cards. Processor and/or the amount of processors categorize them. Video quality and display types also distinguish them. From the dark come three types of processors. One is the Intel 740I—This Intel Processor is the cheapest of the three and can process 3D as well as 2D. It also has the worst benchmarks of all time. (Hey, as long as it can do it, it'll be fine.) The second type is the Voodoo Chipset. There are many subdivisions of Voodoo. We will go into more detail about that later in this article. The third is the nVidia TNT processor. This is the fastest (Or was the fastest now that Voodoo3 came out.) chipset out there.
Now then what is more value for your money? That depends on what you would like.
Best Buy: More the best value, the award goes to the Asus V3800 TNT2. Chips made by nVidia has always been a carrier of fast processing and Asus just blows out the competition. It has the ability to be compatible with TV, MPEG, and LCD monitors. It's RAM starts at 16 or 32 (WOW! That just kills all those cards under $100!) and can be upgraded to 128.
The Most Power: What do you think? Voodoo3 3000 has what Tim Allen would call power. With the power that is three times the Voodoo2 and just kills Voodoo1, this Voodoo card redefines the nature of sheer, raw power. It comes in 2D/3D form so you'll have to give up your existing video set up. The trade-off is well worth trashing your old 2D junk card. With a starting RAM of 16 megs, you can go up to resolutions that you could never do on other cards. The compatibility of colors range from 8-bit (Who'd want to use that?) to 32-bit (For all you math deficient, that's about 157,925,920,365,000 colors! Colors in the trillions.) It's 2D capabilities are about through the roof. It can go up to 32-bits of colors and go to a resolution of 2046x1536. With AGP bus, it'll blow the competition away for about a few more months.
The Worst: Obviously, you think I would go kill the oldest card. Not so since I will be attacking a chipset in general. This chipset would be the Intel 740I chipset. Most of the cards that contain this processor have either withered away on discount store shelves, been ditched in 2 months, or has been burned. This set can do no more processing than a regular 2D card plus some RAM. Sorry if I'm mistaken but I would not shell out $120 for a chipset that doesn't accelerate my 3D performance! The RAM on all these cards total about 32-64 but don't be fooled. It's the quality of the RAM that counts this. In summary, this runs slower than my 486 SX50 laptop.
Hoching.com Recommendation: The best value is to wait. Voodoo3 is way too expensive right now, but it'll cool off in 2-3 months. No problem there unless you been dying for one for 2 years. Then I would suggest a nice $150 card or anything made with Voodoo2 or nVidia TNT. That's quality at a low price.
In summary, most 3D cards can enhance anything 3D-ish that you are doing. But beware, it can still take a huge bite on your wallet.
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