Benchmark Analysis

1. The TNT2 can take on the V3 in pure speed
This review is about the Viper 770 cards, and not the broader topic of TNT2 vs. Voodoo3. However, I think it bears mentioning that all the benchmark results show that the performance line against 3dfx has finally been blurred. Voodoo3 and TNT2 end up fighting for top scores throughout most of the tests, and where one wins, the other is never more than a few frames behind. V770 takes the Expendable crown, while Voodoo3's Glide edge makes it king in Descent 3. 3dfx also has a slight edge in 3DMark, but the remaining tests, Dethkarz and Quake III Arena show the V3 and TNT2 trading off top scores for various resolutions and detail modes.

Considering the substantially lower street price of the Voodoo3 cards, the V770's edge will come mainly in terms of added features afforded by the TNT2 chip.

2. Clock speed, clock speed, clock speed
The number one performance determinant in any modern video card is raw clock speed. While features and driver efficiency are definitely a factor, there's no getting away from the fact that high clock rates are essential to performance. The benchmarks clearly show the Ultra clocked at 150/175 running away from the regular Viper at 125/150 in resolutions above 800x600, and in 32-bit color mode. You can never be too rich, too thin, or have your video card's clock speed set too high.

3. What resolution/CPU do you play with?
If you play all of your games at 800x600 or lower, there's almost no performance difference between any of the tested cards, and certainly no reason to spend the extra cash on the Ultra. You'll only see differences at higher resolutions. Similarly, if you have a very slow CPU, you will see little difference between any of the tested cards at any resolution!

4. Framerate vs. Quality
Going to higher video quality settings, such as 32-bit color and larger texture sizes in Quake 3, cuts the benchmark results anywhere from 10 to 30 percent. If high framerate is the most important factor, you'll want to drop down to a lower resolution or lower color depth. The balance between quality and performance is a personal choice, and it will vary from game to game. For example, I prefer 32-bit color at 800x600 to 16bit color at 1024x768-but that choice is not available with a Voodoo 3 card.

5. 2D Quality
The original TNT cards had a bad reputation for image quality at high resolutions. This was largely the fault of the individual card vendors and not a problem with the actual TNT chipset itself. One of the worst offenders for 2D image quality, ironically, were some of the first-batch TNT card from STB! The TNT2 offers a higher speed RAMDAC, clocking in at 300mhz, so the differences between vendors should be less this time around. However, I still expect 2D image quality to vary slightly from card to card. I am happy to report that the V770, like the V550 before it, produces very sharp 2D image quality on my 19" monitor.