December '97 3D Video Accelerator Comparison

Same deal here, the ATI Xpert@Work moved up a few slots in the Business Winstone tests while the Voodoo Rush and Rendition boards held up the rear of the train.

Here's where things get confusing, remember that extremely low performing Permedia 2 card from Creative Labs?  Well it now comes out as being the first place leader in the Business Winstone 97 tests, scoring a full 2.4 points above the Xpert@Work from ATI but only 1.4 points over the AGP Millennium II.  In the High End tests the STB Velocity 128 is once again limited to its 2nd place position by two tenths of a point provided by the AGP Millennium II which was the first place winner in these tests.  One common occurrence was the placement of the Rendition and Voodoo Rush boards, it is quite obvious that those two chipsets were not intended to be great 2D performers (probably why the term 3D is used in the names of all of the products which used those chipsets ;)...).

2D - Windows Performance Conclusion

The world is full of extremes, not excluding the computer hardware world, and of course including the Video Accelerator Market.   For the absolute best performance when it comes to normal everyday 2D Windows acceleration, the obvious choice is the Matrox Millennium II (AGP).  However when you factor in the lack of support for 3D acceleration the Millennium II leaves you with you must consider the next best thing, in this case, a card using a Riva 128 chipset.   The Riva 128 chipset not only provides you with outstanding 3D acceleration in both OpenGL and Direct3D applications, but its 2D acceleration is well beyond the norm for 2D/3D combo cards like the Voodoo Rush boards.  So the top two choices in this test turned out to be the Matrox Millennium II (AGP) and the STB Velocity 128/Diamond Viper V330 with the ATI Xpert@Work poking its head among those candidates.  How does the picture change in three dimensions?  Let's find out...