The Competitors of GeForce256
I would like to mention two important competitors of NVIDIA's GeForce256-chip.
ATi recently released its dual-Rage128 Pro chip card, called 'Rage Fury MAXX'. This card does not include any integrated 'transform and lighting', which makes it a lot less sophisticated than GeForce. However, Fury MAXX comes with a fill rate that's even a tad higher than GeForce's fill rate, which is why it competes pretty well against GeForce in today's games. The price of Rage Fury MAXX ranges in the same area as the GeForce-cards that are discussed here.
Please find a very detailed preview of ATi's Rage Fury MAXX in comparison to NVIDIA's GeForce256 in the following article:
S3-Diamond is also just about to start shipping their new 'Savage2000'-chip, which you can find in the new 'Viper II'. This product has a hard time to compete against GeForce's and Rage Fury MAXX's high fill rate, but it includes an integrated 'T&L' and it is a master at handling highly detailed textures, thanks to its texture-compression feature. S3-Diamond's Viper II will be cheaper than the GeForce-cards.
We are currently working on a full review of the Viper II, but we can offer a first look at Savage2000 in the following article: