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3Dfx have also gone back to basics with their first Voodoo Banshee product. Being a public company means that they have got to please investors and make wads of money. So by entering the low and mid-range markets, 3Dfx are playing with the likes of ATI and Matrox. Sure they stand to make money but this Voodoo Banshee won't exactly be a world-beater (not that is was ever meant to be). Call it segmentation, somewhat similar to Intel and their CPU strategy if you like- money makes the world go around and all that. With its single Texture Memory Unit (TMU) the first Voodoo Banshee product is no Voodoo2 killer (funnily enough 3Dfx were the only ones not to issue a Voodoo2 killer press release?). One could call it 'a cut-down version of the Voodoo2, without the speed' but at a competitive price to suffice that fact. What entry-level and mid-range users get is a really cheap 2D/3D solution that performs really well in D3D with Glide thrown in for good measure. The fill rate of the Voodoo Banshee isn't exactly lighting quick by today's high-end standards but for the everyday gamer, 100 Megapixels/second means that it's no slouch. The on-chip triangle setup of 4 million textured triangles/second isn't blazing fast but again, it should cater to the everyday gamer's needs. The Voodoo Banshee's chipset dye is pretty full and what you get is a 128-bit 2D core GDI accelerator, with a 128 bit VGA and an integrated Voodoo2 pixel unit, along with a single 3Dfx powered texture unit.
Quantum3D's Voodoo Banshee is almost an exact replica of 3Dfx's reference design, right up to the green heat sink (just in case any of you cared?). Although the Raven we got for review was the AGP flavor, Qauntum3D has also stated that they will cater for your PCI needs. Just so you know (again), the Voodoo Banshee doesn't support AGP 2X so the 1X bus transfer rate only gives a couple of fps extra over a PCI version.
The only way you'd recognize that this was a Quantum3D product would be by the distinct logo and customary black circuit board. If you like your circuit boards black (we do) then Quantum3D can be relied upon for using sleek looking black circuit boards. Other than that, there are no real frills, such as, an on-board TV-Out but then again do most gamers care? Of course if anyone does, then there's that plastic box type-gizmo from Nintendo. The only small difference is that instead of using slightly faster SGRAM, the Raven harbors some 16MB of SDRAM. In terms of performance (check the benchmarks below), the SGRAM based reference design from 3Dfx performed marginally quicker. The most notable difference between SGRAM and SDRAM occurred during tests at 1024x768. Then again when I say 'marginally', I mean marginally. There's never going to be more than 1fps difference and you can take that to the bank.
Benchmarks: Pentium II - 300Mhz
Quake 2 demo1 - Quake 2 demo2 - Incoming - SiN
Benchmarks: Pentium II - 400Mhz
Quake 2 demo1 - Quake 2 demo2 - Incoming - SiN
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