Voodoo5 5500 $137.60

[namlook]

You got a Voodoo 5500 card to replace a Radeon? That is not a good trade-off. The Radeon is a MUCH better card.

 

[darker]

namlook,

just for glide games only like RUNE, Deus EX, UT....I like my Radeon for everything but glide. If i max my settings on my radeon in glide games i get slow downs and i dont like it!

 

[HellRaven]

Namlook, both cards have their merits. The price difference is only about $10-$20 with the Radeon being slightly cheaper if you buy it at buy.com. If buy.com does the ms passport 20% off deal (they do have passport but I don't know if they do 20% off yet) then the Radeon will be about $115, a difference of $30. If it goes that cheap then it may be a better deal to get the radeon, but with the prices close I think the V5 5500 is a better all around card.

 

[john433i]

Is the V5 actually almost as fast as the GeForce2 GTS with the new drivers? <$150 is a great price for this card.

 

[PicPop]

voodoo 5...i finally get one..^^

 

[Passions]

what is the reason they want to you charge for overnight shipping?

dark: hahahah give u props for not giving in!

 

[junthin]

Hmm...just out of curiousity, since everyone is debating on which video card to get, couldn't you potential run both a Voodoo5 and a Radeon? Just curious, because I think one or the other has PCI. So one on PCI and one on AGP? Let me know if this is even feasiable. Thanks!

 

[namlook]

The Voodoo 5500 may have it's merits but no way is it a better &quot;all around card&quot; than the Radeon or the Geforce. It's not even close.

 

[HellRaven]

See Namlook, your trying to make opinion into fact. I gave my opinion, your trying to make it sound like your opinion is fact.

The voodoo5 does have things that set it apart from the others.

- Less of a performance hit in FSAA
- FSAA looks better (subjective, but widely reported)
- With latest drivers within 5-10 fps of Geforce2 in all resolutions
- Better 2d quality due to the fact that there is only one manufacturer of V5's which means they alone can control the 2d filtering quality
- At this price it is $20 cheaper than a GF2 and slightly more expensive than Radeon
- Comes with a few goodies (ok not significant but still...)
- Can play Glide games (not huge, but again another plus)

We could go through and make similar lists of the Radeon and the GF2. Like I said, I think they all have their upsides and with newer drivers for the V5 it can now be ranked right up there with the GF2 and Radeon.

 

[namlook]

I don't have time right now to debate all the facts but I can say that the 5500 does not have better 2d quality than the Radeon. Probably better than the Geforce though. The Radeon has superior visual quality compared to both the 5500 and the Geforce. I was just blown away by the Radeon in UT in 32 bit color. Truly awesome. The Geforce is not so hot in terms of visual quality, expecially 2d visual quality. Fuzzy text in 2d is not my idea of a good time.

Also you say that the 5500 is now &quot;ranked right up there&quot; with the Radeon and Geforce. That's fine, it's a matter of opinion, but you also said earlier that the 5500 is a better all around card and that is simply not true. I'm glad you are backing down a bit from that initial statement. You kind of went out on a limb there. The Radeon is much more cutting edge in terms of capabilities. It also excels in 32 bit performance and in visual quality which I really like. If you don't like playing in 32 bit color maybe the Radeon is not for you.

Also, my feeling that the Radeon is the better card is based on my opinion and facts. I think if you do your research before you buy a 5500 you will end up going another direction. But hey, it's your choice and the 5500 is certainly not a bad card and it's definately the best card for Glide games. Good luck.

 

[cremefilled]

The Radeon is reported to have problems with 16-bit color games, such as polygon gapping and seaming, and visual snow. I've read that in several reviews; it is apparently especially prevalent in older games.

The Voodoo 5, otoh, is--like the entire Voodoo line--probably the most compatible video card around. I've had plenty of problems with my Geforce SDR through the many, many Nvidia driver iterations, but I can't remember ever having a problem with the Voodoo 3-3K that's in my second machine, or a while back, with my Voodoo 2 SLI cards.

As for bleeding-edge speed, yeah, the Geforce GTS and Radeon DDR will get you slightly better framerates in certain games at 16X12 resolutions, but for me the sweet spot is 12X9 or 12X10 resolution, and all 3 cards can handle any game on market at that resolution. The Glide compatibility is an important bonus, as I play a lot of UT, Tribes, and Unreal-engine games (Rune, Deus Ex, etc.). And the anti-aliasing features can really bring older games to life (as just one example, Darkstone is limited to 640X480, but with 4XAA, it really looks gorgeous).

That said, if I only played Quake 3--as most of the hardware review sites seem to do--I probably wouldn't get a 3dfx card as a first choice.

 

[Squisher]

I'm far from an expert on anything, but everyone of the people I know who have Geforce2's experience some instability and ATI's support has been pretty spotty in the past. This has me buying the Voodoo5. After going through the last 2 months like I've had with my computer, lock ups from a dying harddrive and hangs on boot from I don't know what, compatibility and stability are an easy trade off for frames per second. Although, my problems did give me an excuse to get a MSI Pro2, Thunderbird 1Gig, and now the Voodoo5. There's nothing like coputer problems to increase the Spouse-Acceptance-Factor

 

[Milkyman]

It is possible to use both a radeon/geforce and a voodoo5 pci or vice versa, and you will get dual monitor support but all the features of the secondary card (pci) will not work. Any 3d tasks will still be handled by the primary (agp) card so basically you would be wasting your money if you did this. I did some asking around back when I wanted to get a pci ATI all in wonder to go with my geforceDDR and that is what i found.

 

[MattStone]

I agree that the V5 is a more stable card. Even with the early drivers it was pretty stable...and it has just gotten better, like the experts have predicted. I'm also there with you on the 16-bit issue...it is much better, I have used both, and the Radeon ain't that great in 16-bit. Just 2 weeks ago I was going to buy a 64 meg Radeon, but I decided no to after a test, because my primary game is Half-Life...16-bit. This is one hell of a deal for this card, many times I almost paid 280 for it, and I probably would have too, but for below 150, this card has to be tops on the market.

 

[TK-421]

Here's the URL for the 5500 on Onvia in case anyone had trouble finding it:

http://www.onvia.com/usa/products/index.cfm?Task=ViewProduct&amp;IdCatalog=2502983

Update:
Yipee!! Just called in and did the pricematch. No problems whatsover. My CSR was Chris
and made no attempt to slam me with some stupid Overnight charge, he was very familiar with
Onvia. Had no problem with a coupon either. Quick, painless, easy. The way ordering should be.

Total: $145.86

 

[pen^2]

you could run HL in 32 bit and on radeon it looks marginally better than the v5 JFYI. what is all this 16bit issue i am hearing of? i dont run a single game in 16/22(yeah right) bit... why pay all that mulah to settle for less? this is indeed a hot deal, i would gone for it if i hadnt already purchased radeon. but 16bit issue you keep bringing up is quite inapplicable. sure those grapes must be sore right?

 

[Kroffty]

Well I just tried in Tacoma WA. They are out of stock!!!!!!!!!!!!! Crap :| Well With the tax I would have to pay at staples it is only $20 more at ONvia .I may just get it there.

 

[Kroffty]

Never mind ! Onvia wants taxes too.

 

[cremefilled]

BrotherMan, last I checked, I don't have &quot;sore grapes.&quot; I think you are confusing a few issues. It is the Voodoo3 that tried to sell the 16/22 color resolution. The Voodoo5 has full 32-bit color. And there are many (most, actually) older games that are limited to 16-bit color. Not the best game, but one that comes to mind that I've played recently is Blood 2. Darkstone is another. And Combat Mission. And Freespace 2.

I personally get sick of the hardware review sites (like SharkyExtreme) that give page after page of Quake 3 test results, making that the be-all, end-all of graphics performance. This allows companies like ATI to optimize their drivers for a couple of benchmarks, and then say, &quot;There, all done with that whole driver thing.&quot; Meanwhile, ATI cards have been having problems with 16-bit color for several years, and there is probably no solution forthcoming. The Voodoo 5 will look good on and be compatible with everything, especially with FSAA. And it will be by far the best card on the market for Glide games like Unreal Tournament (which I personally have played at least 6X as much as Quake 3; but it doesn't scale as well in testing as Q3, so it is rarely benchmarked).

 

[pugh]

Look who cares!!!!If you dont like the card shut up and dont post.no matter how much you put it down or pump it up ..some of us think it is a good deal to get ,man i tell you some guys on here are pathetic!! this is a nice place to post except when people argue over things that really dont matter ....

 

[cremefilled]

...pugh has spoken...

 

[paranoia]

all hail pugh

 

[pen^2]

i did say it was a good deal, i even said i would have gotten it; i just cant stand false information being spread about the card i currently own
cremefilled, my point is why get a high end 3d card if you spend more time playin older games? v3 is perfectly suited for that, name one glide game in which v5 could offer so much more than v3 could... with subpar grafix to begin with, i could care less about all that FSAA crappola. have you tried UT in d3d lately? its VERY decent, higher fps at higher fps (where it really counts) .. the lokiGL can look noticeably better than glide depending on the map... i remember reading from somewhere that 16bit rendering problem with radeon is inherent to its design, not remediable with driver updates, correct me if i am wrong...

THIS IS A SCORCHING HOT DEAL, BUT DONT LET IT BE A RADEON BASHING THREAD. OUT

 

[darker]

bobby ribs,

The CSR told me that my order would be shipped overnight and onvia would charge 25 bucks for there overnight for this item and there free shipping is ground only. I think its a load of bs and I cant remember getting anything from staples shiped overnight?

As far as the cards go.....I have the radeon 32meg DDR in my puter right now. I like this card alot, and think it performs like a champ in everyway but in GLIDE based games. I am getting ready to play RUNE, DEUS EX, UT lan party.....etc. I have to lower my graphics quality with the radeon to get allmost as fast performance as I had with my V3 3000 maxed out. If the radeon had glide support I may have not bought this card. I want a card in my machine that will run great with max quality on every game I run on it. The V5 5500 can do this for me at this time and is the only card I know of that will run GLIDE games with max settings and churn out the fast smooth framerates that I am looking for. I know that gforce and radeon may run q3 at 150 fps and the voodoo will give only 135 but I dont realy need those extra 15 fps in that game. Its just overkill to me. This is just my 2cents

 

[cremefilled]

BrotherMan, what you said was: &quot;but 16bit issue you keep bringing up is quite inapplicable.&quot;

If you don't play _any_ games that are available only in 16-bit color, your statement is correct. But I think that 16-bit quality is quite applicable to most people who play computer games. Yes, a Voodoo 3 will run 16-bit games quite well. A Voodoo 5 will run them better yet. But if the Radeon has irremediable problems with 16-bit, and is _worse_ looking than a $60 Voodoo 3 (even if it has twice the framerates), that is an important issue. (To add to my list above, just glancing at my bookshelf, Alien vs. Predator, Need For Speed 3 &amp; 4, Battlezone, Swat 3D, and Kiss: Psycho Circus are also--I think--16-bit only games.)

I've had Unreal Tourney crash on me numerous times with the various iteration of Nvidia Geforce drivers and UT patches, and I am certainly not alone. It's working now with 6.35 and 4.32 respectively, and I hope it stays that way. But it has always worked perfectly with any of the 3dfx cards.

&quot;name one glide game in which v5 could offer so much more than v3 could&quot;
Deus Ex, Ultima: Ascension, Rune