December '97 3D Video Accelerator Comparison

On the low end, with the Cyrix 6x86MX, achieving high frame rates in Quake is a bit of a task.  Hands down, the best card for the job out of this roundup is the Creative Labs Voodoo 2.  However for those of you that either, 1) can't find the card as it is a rarity even in the hardware reviewer community, or 2) aren't willing to spend $200+ on a 3D-only accelerator, there are a few more options. 

The next best cards for the job are the Diamond Stealth II 3D, Hercules Thriller 3D, and Diamond Monster 3D.  Although in theory the Thriller 3D should be the fastest out of the three, the Stealth II 3D seems to have produced a 0.6 fps lead over the Thriller 3D, a lead that doesn't translate into much at all. 

I would still go for the Thriller 3D over the Stealth II since the Thriller 3D is also available in an 8MB version and in an AGP flavor as well...if you thought the PCI Thriller 3D was fast, just wait until we get a load of the AGP version.  Both Voodoo Rush cards tested here failed the Quake 2 test when using the Cyrix 6x86MX, I would attribute this to a driver problem, however it seems quite odd that both cards would freeze up during the Q2 Timedemo while the competition ran flawlessly.  In any case, the performance of Voodoo Rush boards using the 6x86MX isn't nearly as fast as that of the Rendition cards or the 3Dfx Voodoo cards so you have very little to worry about, especially considering that the pricetag of any Voodoo Rush card would fit much more appropriately on a Voodoo 2 card.

Once again, the Voodoo 2 chipset shines at 800 x 600, proving to the gaming world that there is a universe outside of the 640 x 480 world. 

The ATI Xpert@Work's scores here indicate that the 3D Rage Pro scales with processor performance somewhat, however the ceiling to the seemingly linear progression is closer than one would expect.  While you won't hit it with any normally clocked Socket-7 processors, Pentium II owners will quickly realize the limits to the 3D Rage Pro's power.  At 6.7 fps, 800 x 600 is virtually un-playable with the Xpert@Work on a 6x86MX, don't expect the final OpenGL drivers to boost performance further than 10 or 11 fps on average...just one of the tradeoffs you make when you buy a 6x86MX, you get a processor that is ferocious competitor in Business applications while at the same time you get a processor that can barely stay competitive when it comes to heavy FPU calculations.