Manufacturer: Canopus Corp. Tech: PCI based Voodoo2 board with 12Mb 25ns EDO DRAM, Cooling fan and NTSC/PAL TV/S-video out Bundle: The Drivers and jack shit but who cares? Price: $329

Both Diamond and Creative have already released their Voodoo2's, that have now been out for about six weeks, but it's only now that the real competition is about to start. Practically every graphics card manufacturer that jumped on to the Voodoo2 bandwagon has waited (not intentionally mind you) for the dust to settle from Diamond's and Creative's offerings and now it's their turn to attempt to spice up the market. So who's in the ball game so to speak? Well Orchid, miro, Quantum3D, California Graphics, Jazz MultiMedia (we think?), A-Trend, STB and...? The company rolling off of my lips is Canopus, and the Voodoo2 card rolling fresh off of their production line is the long-awaited, eagerly anticipated and much-hyped Pure 3D II.

Canopus blasted on to the 3D graphics scene last year with their 'pimptastic Pure 3D, which also won an award for 'best 3D card' in out 'Sweet-Ass 1997 Awards'. The reason for having won the award was largely due to their alternative policy. Whereas most of the Voodoo Graphics based card manufactures were bragging about games bundles (which all included MechWarrior 2 anyway), in steamed Canopus with re-hashed reference design that included a TV-Out and rather innovatively an extra 2MB (hey it meant a lot back then!). Although it showed up later on in the Voodoo Graphics' life cycle (as has the Pure 3D II in the Voodoo2's), hardcore gamers appreciated the work Canopus put into making the Pure 3D stand out from the crowd. It became a hardcore gamer's pet- especially for GLQuake. It's no wonder then, that the industry and punters alike have been sitting patiently in the bushes waiting to pounce on Canopus' Voodoo2 offerings. If you did in fact wait for Canopus' Pure 3D II before buying a Voodoo2- then after you've read through this review, you'll probably feel that you've indeed made the right decision.