The major complaint most of us have with XGI... are the following:
1) Cheating aka "optimizations"... most notably Halo
Although all games will not have the same optimizations, seeing what has been produced in one game for a "supposed" high end card is very disgusting. If such an optimization is applied to all games, this in turn is "lowering" high quality and is a backwards step in 3d graphics.
2) High speed-noisy fans
If the FX5800 was any indication (and even NVidia put a little joke on it), then this is an issue for some.
3) Dual molex connectors requirement
You'd think it would be the last since the Voodoo 5500, but that obviously is the norm now for high end hardware. There isn't any high performing hardware that requires TWO of them. This may change possibly in the future, but for the time being, it's overkill.
4) Lack of TRUE aniso
Negative mip-map LODs are not the answer to what we know aniso to be. The competition has this done hands down, it's very decieving to the consumer to see "fake" aniso.
5) Performance
Only a few games shows performance only CLOSE to the competition. Keyword: FEW I'm not even going to include AA because it would just be unacceptable altogether.
6) Compatibility
It's nice to know it works with all the other benchies. However, when you're trying to get this working on some the more popular games (and lesser).. this becomes a disaster if you're a hard core gamer.
7) Cost
I still don't see why you'd have to pay $100-$200 more than the competition for this hardware.
To sum it up, every pic you've shown us are nice... but you're not making any valid comparison.. visual or performance.
It's nice to know the Volari can "run" Max Payne 2. However, I'm rather uncomfortable knowing that there's too many negatives to even make me WANT to buy one. I shouldn't have to guess whether a game works on the video card, let alone perform well. I also shouldn't have to find out about "missing features" that the competition has. These are the expectations for a high end card.
The XGI Volari fails all expectations. In contrast, even the Deltachrome, although slightly behind, fulfills some expections that for a mid-end card should fulfill.
I think the major complaint is this:
How's the Volari in comparision to the competition?
Answer: Crappy - see above for answers