So know you have had your taste of benchmarks as well as some eye candy, not to mention the technology preview and what do you do? Well, if you own a gutless 3D card from yesteryear you still have a pretty tough dilemma. There are plenty of other cards to choose from that do everything you need right now. Fast frame rates? Pick a Geforce 2GTS or an ATI Radeon for a couple of hundred dollars. Need something a bit faster and more expensive? OK, try a Geforce2 Ultra then... But whatever you do, do not buy a Geforce3 card expecting to play DX6- and DX7-based titles faster than you can say "I spent $500 on something that's slightly slower than the card I replaced, which also cost me $500 not so long ago." It isn't going to happen.

This is a DX8 card and that's just the way things go. NVIDIA controls the speed limit (cue the theme tune from C.H.I.P's) right now granted, but even they realize that going forward, it's not all about fill rate and clock speed.

Anyone who has seen/been to their press event or listened to their technical briefs will tell you that they feel they have taken speed (namely Quake III) as far as it needs to go for now. Now's the time to brush up on image quality, and there is no better DX8-capable card on the scene than the GeForce3. Don't believe us? Ask Microsoft... DX8 is a leap forward and if you think of it that way, NVIDIA is a safe bet to take that leap with, since they basically wrote the spec for DX8 in-cahoots with Microsoft. DX8-based games that make full or even partial use of a Geforce3's capabilities WILL look better. The only other question is how long will it take for game developers to get on board? When will they release these games? Q3? Christmas? Next Year? Or perhaps when the cows come home?

Expect to see the likes of ELSA, Guillemot/Hercules and VisionTek (nothing from Creative this time around) fight it out for GeForce3 shelf space sometime in the coming month. Not only will they be releasing a new product line but also all of these companies have told us at one time or another that their current range of Geforce2's will have prices cut (but probably not the Ultras). This is a good thing...