Manufacturer: A-trend Tech: PCI based 3Dfx Voodoo2 with 12Mb EDO Bundle: Demo CD Price: ~$125

You might ask, "Who on Earth is A-Trend?", and if you reside in the US or Europe most of you will probably find that question nigh on impossible to answer. Any of you that do happen know of A-Trend, will probably know so due to their motherboards, which have had some success in their field. As for us lucky folks that have been to Computex (??) in Taiwan this year- well we do know differently. In fact, at Computex '98 in June, A-Trend had one of the largest stands at the trade show and it was pretty clear that in terms of the graphics card industry- A-Trend is playing with the big boys in Taiwan. They've also been around the block the first time with the original Voodoo Graphics. They 'claim'(??) to be the first Taiwanese manufacturer to have had a Voodoo Graphics board, which was then followed by the likes of Skywell. First to market they may have been in South East Asia but in the US and across Europe, they were about 9 months too late. It's partly the same story with the Voodoo2 in terms of their arrival into the market. Some six months (too??) late A-Trend might well be but by aggressively pricing their Helios 2 3D they've created enough of a margin to have found themselves a nice niche not only with OEM's but also with end users in some countries. In terms of the end user, they quite possibly have the upper hand in terms of quality and presentation. Having said that, don't expect the same Diamond type quality but the box looks like it's had some money spent on it and the manual is in very clear and legible English.