· Ties for 1st in OpenGL performance
· SLI potential

· 800 x 600 Maximum resolution
· 16bpp Maximum color depth
· Requires 2D card
· Occupies PCI slot
· No AGP feature-set support

Ah the old man in the field makes his appearance on this list....We get tears of nostalgia when we think of the Voodoo2, and the role its played in paving the way for the next-generation video cards in this round up. When we think all the way back to.....hey, wait a minute....It's only been seven months since the Voodoo2 appeared!

With that dose of reality to eliminate our "fog of nostalgia" (played to the tune of Barbra Streisand's 'Memories') we rank the Voodoo2 4th in this tough field of young whippersnappers.

Why "any" Voodoo2 and not a certain one? Two words: Falling Prices. The Voodoo2 has been eroding in price over the last 30 days to such a strong degree that almost ANY of the 12MB cards can be had now for less than $179.

How does the Voodoo2 compare to the new crop of video cards? Well it doesn't support AGP.....It doesn't lift a finger to help out in 2D apps.....It doesn't make an attempt to support in-game color depths beyond 16bpp....And it maxes out at just 8MB of texture cacheable DRAM (on the 12MB V2 models).

Look bad? Well as they say in the car mags, high performance has a way of erasing all the negatives, and the Voodoo2 has this effect big-time. Placing in the middle of the pack in D3D performance and tying for the top of the heap in OpenGL benchmarks puts the Voodoo2 square in the sights of the average gamer for filling their immediate performance needs. The ability to drop in another Voodoo2 card and experience the fastest 1024x768 3D gaming in the world can't be overlooked either, as prices have brought the magic "$250" mark for two V2s into reach.

But as good as the Voodoo2 is, it isn't designed to make the transition into the future like the cards ranking above it are. The days of "add-on" 3D accelerators are gone, even 3Dfx has admitted that the Voodoo2 will be the last product they offer that doesn't have 2D capabilities built in.

We love the Voodoo2, but our eye has been caught wandering to other sexy models, and it's almost time for us to divorce. We can't put it any other way that's clearer than that.