Thus far, the battle between 3dfx and NVIDIA for the high-end 3D market has largely been a difference in architectures. While NVIDIA has focused on a single chip solution with high-speed memory (saving on-board real estate and memory costs), 3dfx delivers a less complicated design capable of scaling to 32 processors. This philosophy provides several benefits over traditional single-chip boards that are limited to the fastest memory available.
First and foremost, the scalable architecture addresses the most prolific problem facing current top-end accelerators. Equipped with gigatexel processors, these expensive boards are restricted by memory bandwidth (information doesn't travel from local memory to the graphics processor fast enough to realize full rendering potential). With the Voodoo5 5500, SDR memory is used to match the bandwidth of the GeForce2's DDR RAM. At the high end, the Voodoo5 6000, sporting 4 32MB memory banks will offer over 10GB/s of bandwidth! Not only does this alleviate throughput issues, but also makes use of components widely available.
On the flip side, scalable architectures also tend to amount to higher costs. As you can see, for every doubling of bandwidth, there is a doubling of components used. The result of this is a very expensive top of the line card. The Voodoo5 6000 will cost around $600. It's a give and take situation, but until a more effective method for overcoming the painfully palpable bandwidth limitation is devised, it seems as though 3dfx has the right idea.
Our initial look at the Voodoo5 5500 didn't sweep us off of our feet, but then again, we were dealing with beta silicon and early beta drivers. Needless to say, we've been anticipating the retail product for some time. A couple of long nights with Voodoo and Mountain Dew are all it took to determine what performance changes had emerged.
Intel Coppermine 800MHz
Gigabyte 6CX i820 Motherboard
128MB PC800 RDRAM
Sound Blaster Live! Value
3Com 10/100 NIC
WDC 10.2 GB 7200RPM DMA/66 HDD
Windows 98 SE
AMD Athlon 800MHz
Gigabyte 7VX KX133 Motherboard
128 PC133 SDRAM
Sound Blaster Live! Value
3Com 10/100 NIC
WDC 10.2 GB 7200RPM DMA/66 HDD
Windows 98 SE
3dfx Voodoo5 5500 64MB SDR RAM (166/166MHz) / Driver: 1.00.01
Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS 32MB DDR RAM (200/333MHz) / Driver: 5.22
ELSA GLADIAC 32MB DDR RAM (200/333MHz) / Driver: 5.22
NVIDIA GeForce 64MB DDR (120/300MHz) / Driver: 5.22
ATI Rage Fury MAXX 64MB SDR RAM (125/143MHz) / Driver: A6.40CD06