3dfx
Voodoo 5 5500 AGP review
Posted by Thomas
McGuire on August 30, 2000
Company:
3dfx
Interactive Product: Voodoo
5 5500 AGP
The
Voodoo 5 5500AGP is the latest graphics card from 3dfx. It
also represents something of watershed for the company’s
range of graphics cards. In something of a turn around from
“Frame rate is king”, this range of products is more
“Image quality is king”. Quite a bold step for a company
which has been booed by many for sticking with “ugly”
16-bit image quality while all the competitors had moved
onto supporting 32-bit colour
& large textures.
Still,
3dfx pretty much revolutionized PC’s & gaming with the
original Voodoo graphics card. Is FSAA really the most
revolutionary thing to be introduced since then ? Read on.
Here’s
a shot of my Voodoo 5 5500 with the Mellenger
Voodoo5 cooling kit installed. As you can see the Voodoo
5 itself is a very large card.
Installation
The Voodoo 5 5500AGP
is quite a big card as you can see above (Circa 10 inches),
that said it fitted just fine into my case without any
problems. Those of you with small or cramped cases may find
some difficultly with it though.
A
power connector was required to be attached to the Voodoo 5
in order for it to work. I also needed another 2 connectors
to be used for the cooling kit (The heatsink/fan’s that
come with the Voodoo 5 are connected to the card itself).
The
card installed perfectly in both Windows 98 SE & Windows
2000. Both drivers used were the latest available on 3dfx
Gamers.
Packaging
& Manual
Bare
is a good word to describe the contents of the Voodoo 5 5500
AGP retail box. Inside the box you’ll find a 3dfx mouse
pad & note apologizing for the delay releasing it (You
may recall the launch was held back due to problem being
found). The driver CD contains the Windows 9x drivers, a
gamma setup program (E-color 3Deep & True Internet
Color) & DirectX 7.
No
other bundled software though, which is a shame really, but
then again, it keeps the cost down. Besides, no technical
demo’s nor new games are required to show the effect of
FSAA, just play any 3D game with Anti-Aliasing enabled &
you’ll see for yourself.
Go
to next page !
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