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

To: John Finley who wrote (9556)	12/12/1998 3:05:00 PM
From: Obewon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 16960

My view as a casual gamer but informed investor. Lack of 32bit... non essential to pursuit of Voodoo3's core market Please remember that Voodoo3 = Banshee2, an OEM part. 3Dfx MUST crack open OEM markets if it is going to succeed. While Banshee is a credible part it missed on two features that OEMs felt were critical to marketing success: 1) AGPx2 (OEM's go with the flow of the market and Intel's campaign for AGP has been successful even if it's not the OEM's long-term interests to adopt an Intel standard and AGP and AGPx2 don't aid in running any real applications) 2) Windows certification (like it or not few OEMs are going to risk installing non-Windows compliant hardware in their machines. Though I can't confirm this, I'm sure their licensing agreements cover certain penalties (such as lack of Microsoft support) in such a case.) Voodoo3 will have these feature(the first already stated in the feature set with a promise of a AGPx4 chip around summer, the second learned fron experience). Thus, if it has all the essential features what is important to OEMs Brand name Price Availability (Lesser extent) Performance Voodoo is one of the best brand names in the business (if not THE best) Performance (will be the best except for those techno purists that insist that lack of 32 bit ruins their experience) Price (should be the cheapest to produce since the enbedded R&D is minimal and manufacturers have been producing chips with similar cores already - smaller learning curve) Availability (???? - this could be a stumbling point since 3Dfx has demonstrated its lack of skill in the past in predicting demand for their products) OB