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Technology Stocks : 3DFX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael Linov who wrote (7061)	9/11/1998 2:21:00 AM
From: Pierre-X	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

Thanks for the comments. You make some good points. 3Dfx definitely suffered from Rush. I agree with that. RIVA 128 is proven design NOW, after a year of updates updates updates. I disagree that the Banshee drivers MUST be flawless right off the line. Just about every new chipset in the history of PCs, including such venerable and mega-mass-selling chips like the S3 968 had their share of driver headaches when they were introduced. V2 still has some driver troubles, judging by the updates that come out periodically. It's more important to pump the PERFORMANCE to as high a level as realistically attainable, because THAT's what gets cited everywhere. Make it FAST and make sure EVERYBODY knows it. That's what sold V2. I disagree that marketing wizardry and benchmarking can "easily overcome" Banshee's missing features. Typical comparison charts in 3D reviews show a depressing number of missing features for Banshee: AGP 2X, truecolor z buffers, multitexturing, hardware dvd accel. You can argue about the relative significance or insignificance of these items until you're blue in the balls but that doesn't change the FACT that these are reported as MISSING FEATURES in reviews. You can also rail about inaccurate journalism until you're purple in the patootie but that doesn't change the FACT that many reporters know less about these issues than many of the posters on the thread. 3Dfx may want to consider adopting Microsoft's strategy of explicitly assigning PR employees to "handle" specific reporters and reviewers. I disagree that the Banshee is a "little" late. I disagree that "many design wins go to last years' cards". Most of Dell's current enterprise machines are equipped with Rage Pro Turbo or Rage IIC -- correct me if I'm wrong but I dont think either of these are "last years' cards." YOU may be disappointed in the Rage Pro Turbo, but there are now millions of more or less satisfied users out there.