Here is an previous post and answer from me. You newbies especially may
learn a thing or two from it:
"
Anthony Roche <anthony@rainbowhill.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:7nfqs1$qp2$1@news5.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Is the next Voodoo Card going to be 3D Only, so us Voodoo 2 Owners can easy
> to upgrade and what about SLI owners surely 3Dfx hasn't forgotten this.
>
> Thanks
>
>
Anthony,
Your question is not as dumb as it may first sound, but the answer is
no, they will not. There are a few reasons and here are some of them:
#1- Video CARD companies are in business for one reason, money. Period.
They don't care about you or how cool you want your system to be or what
games you play. As long as you buy a video card they will make it. Why
would they allow you to "upgrade" if you'll buy a whole new video card?
#2- Video CHIP makers are in business for one reason, money. Why do you
think 3DFX bought out STB? So they can manufacture an entire video board
from start to finish and keep ALL the profits!! So why would they allow you
to keep an "old" 2d board and buy a "cheaper" 3d only board? They won't!!
#3- Each time a new 2d/3d board comes out, the clock speeds are higher,
including the RAMDAC.
This means (for the RAMDAC) that you can use higher resolutions on your
monitor. Not long ago 1024x768 was the limit. Now with 300mhz RAMDAC and
350mhz RAMDAC we're seeing supported resolutions from 1920x1600-2048x2048
(anyone have a $9,000.00 monitor?)
#4- USED to be that only proffesional video cards had more than 4megs of RAM
on them. 32megs is standard now and the line between proffesional and
consumer graphics cards is dissappearing. The NV10 from Nvidia scheduled
for November of 99 is supposed to support up to 256megs of video RAM and be
capable of "photo-realistic graphics". With expandable(?) video RAM, why
offer 2 identical boards when 1 mongo board is better anyhow?
#5- Why offer SLI on a 3d only board now? They don't need to, at ALL!!
Single pass mutitexturing, environmental bump-mapping, 8bit stencils and
32bit rendering/color depth through a SINGLE chip is better and a hell of a
lot (majic words here!!) "CHEAPER TO MANUFACTURE" than a multi-chip split
function 3d only board. They'll still soak your ass for $250.00+ for a
video card (which you'll buy!!) that costs 1/3 to manufacture from a single
Voodoo2 board!!
#6- Heat. Why have 3 video cards (1 2d, 2 3d [SLI])? I did, now you know
what I run? A SINGLE TNT2 Ultra Creative Labs card! I sold my TNT and SLI
set-up to buy this Ultra and had $80.00 to spare!! (retail). Now my system
runs about 9degrees cooloer because I now only have 1 card that makes less
heat overclocked at 175/200 than my TNT did clocked at 95/110!!! Not to
mention my motherboard resources breathe easier, large textures are a joke,
32bit color looks awesome and I have room for 3 more PCI cards since my TNT
needed a 486 fan attatched to it which took up one PCI slot, then the 2 for
the SLI.
SO, you start to see why 3d only cards are dead? 2d and 3d can be
incorporated on the same silicon run for less money in production than a
multichip board that runs 3d only and SLI is un-called for. YES, 3DFX DID
forget about you then, if you want to look at it that way."
