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Until very recently, Voodoo 2 cards had a street price of about $300, and in order to achieve the high frame rates boasted all over the internet, you needed two Voodoo 2 cards (2 Voodoo 2's can be hooked up via an SLI cable to get a 50% increase in frame rate). The Voodoo 2, like its younger brother, has no 2D capabilities. A combined price of $750 was just too high for most.
3Dfx's second offering comes in the form of the Voodoo Banshee, which is a toned down version of the Voodoo 2 with a powerful 2D core. The Banshee is a bit slower than a Voodoo 2, especially under applications that require multitexturing and are texture intensive, but for a retail price of $130, the Banshee offers a complete package to anyone looking for an entry level to mid-range graphics product.
nVidia. nVidia's claim to fame was the Riva128, the Voodoo Graphic's closest competitor. Touted as the Voodoo killer, the Riva128 fell a bit short of its mark. Now nVidia are claiming to hold a Voodoo 2 killer in the form of their TNT chipset. While the TNT, which consists of a dual Riva128 core, does offer some impressive speed, heat issues have forced nVidia to cut back the chipset's performance. Scheduled to ship with an internal clock rate of 125MHz for a 250Mp per second throughput, the TNT now struggles along at 90MHz and 180Mp per second. While faster than a single Voodoo 2 in most instances, the TNT is by no means a Voodoo 2 SLI killer, as originally claimed by nVidia. The TNT does offer unparalleled Direct3D performance along with the industry's best visual quality, however.
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