It'll be interesting to see how Creative's 16MB SDRAM board compares to Diamond's and what about Quantum 3D's promise to enter the market at the same time as the big boys? Well they've all promised to deliver but from having talked to all three recently and having only seen Diamond's offering it does look like Diamond will be first out of the blocks.
Diamond isn't really pitching their Voodoo Banshee as the hardcore gamers 3D card. Instead the Banshee board from Diamond will be aimed at part-time gamers and newbies for a very affordable price. In addition you'll get a good performing board that supports Glide games- what else do you want? 2D Huh, with the Banshee you got it.
So am I impressed with the Banshee in general? Well yes I am. Will you be? That depends. You have to consider what category you fall into. Are you a newbie or part-time gamer? Then the Voodoo Banshee will more than cater for your needs, with its excellent D3D performance (especially under DirectX 6.0) and solid Quake2 performance. And don't forget that for sub $100, which is what the Banshee products from most OEMs are expected to sell for, you still get accessibility to Glide based games. As I said earlier Unreal ran like a dream at 1024x768, which of course you cannot do with a single Voodoo2 solution. The same could be said of Quake2 which ran at 1024x768 (although a little too slow for good mulitplayer action). On the other hand, are you a serious gamer who needs the fastest 3D graphics card in the West with dual TMUs? Then you need the Voodoo2 or indeed an SLI dual Voodoo2 setup. Nothing can touch that yet. If you do fall into this category- then don't be disappointed with Banshee. Quakers' across the NET, for your time will come with 3Dfx's next product imbetween this current Banshee and their 'Rampage'. In fact the very next product should be just for you- it'll still be part of the Banshee family except that the whispers are that the board will harbor two TMUs. Groovy. I think I'll stop there.