Fall Comdex '98 Coverage

A quick meeting with 3Dfx put an end to many causes for speculation about the upcoming Voodoo3 mentioned in AnandTech's update from Day 1.  First of all, for reasons to do with not wanting to develop an AGP to AGP bridge, the Voodoo3 will not offer an SLI solution like that of the Voodoo2.  Secondly, a Voodoo3 card will probably contain only 16MB of frame buffer memory, so don't expect any massive 64MB configurations from 3Dfx at the launch of the Voodoo3. 

Canopus

After nearly killing me for not awarding them the best TNT card for the Spectra 2500 (price is a factor, c'mon guys) the wonderful people over at Canopus were more than happy to let me snag a few pictures of a prototype of the upcoming Videoport 600 add-on to the Spectra 2500.  Unfortunately, Canopus didn't have a working model and other than their fairly impressive video rendering fx engine, the Canopus booth wasn't too incredibly exciting.  But do take a look at the Videoport 600, it adds many video editing capabilities to the already excellent Spectra 2500:

ATI

One of the most highly anticipated products at this year's Comdex had to have been the ATI Rage 128 chipset.  While ATI boasted performance rivaling that of nVidia's Riva TNT, most readers and consumers remained skeptical of ATI's claims based on the company's not so wonderful reputation.  After the brief demo AnandTech saw at this year's Comdex, the Rage 128 definitely seems like a strong competitor. 

The benchmark comparisons displayed seemed, surprisingly enough, balanced in favor of ATI (hmmn..), the chipset itself does seem to be an above average performer.  It was obvious that V-Sync was left enabled in the demos running at the front of the booth, however even then the test machines must have been cranking out close to 60 fps under Quake 2 at 800 x 600.  The overall quality of ATI's first real 3D chipset should be acknowledged, and provided that ATI can deliver on time, the Rage 128 will definitely become a welcome addition, especially in laptops where decent 3D acceleration is beyond scarce.  One thing is for sure though, the Rage 128 won't be the elusive Voodoo2 SLI killer, just wait for the Voodoo3 for that.  It seems as if the Rage 128 will be the ideal, all-purpose, TNT alternative with it's support for more than just 3D acceleration (the letters DVD come to mind).