Sheesh are you guys bitter. Really now nVidia has done more for the graphics industry than any of you seem to give it credit for; I can't imagine what would be available right now if NV didn't set the freakish product cycle it has. I, for one, enjoyed the hell out my STB TNT, my Guillemot 3D Prophet SDR, eVGA GF2, and my shiny new Inno3D GF2. Obviously, I'm a fan, but I am by no means a mindless drone for their products.
I am by all means not a fan of 3DFX, as I have attempted to conduct business with them and would never buy a product of theirs if my life depended because of it. I have had direct experience with the Voodoo AGP 5500 through this arrangement, and I can safely say it was a flawed product on many levels. It had its high points, but I felt those high points were out weighed by the crippled pci/agp fubar and their deplorable business oriented demeanor. Converesely, nVidia was a champ from the start after bouncing from 3DFX to them. Completely obliging, courteous, and intelligent enough to foster opporunity when it was still in developement. That and the GF2 imho kicked the pants off the V5 in terms of performance. Combine these two drawbacks to 3DFX and put them up against NV, and you can see how one of them failed and the other did not.
ATI, I am glad to see their keeping themselves in the game; I have no problem whatsoever with a little more competition in the industry and for that matter strongly encourage it. The Radeon is a competitve product I inted to keep a very close eye on its future renditions, especially with regard to tyhe price advantage ATI seems to offer over NV. BUt, nonetheless, I am a gamer and the GF2 still outperforms the Radeon as far as I can tell (no direct experience ) in just about every benchmark I've seen. That being said, the GF2 still has my money ($133 to be exact.)
As for the Kyro II, hooray for alternatives! I tend to keep in mind though that not onyl is it more expensive than a GF2 right now (remember, $133,) it did not outperform its cousin the GF2 Pro. That, to me, indicates the GF2 is still very much on par with the Kyro II since there is not a whole heck of alot of difference between the PRo and the GF2. Benchies preach to that point.
Umm... I like nvidia, nv=good.
John
ps
got board writing this little blurb so please excuse the abrupt end (or thank me, either one is fine