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I’ve put together a comparison between the i740 and the 3dfx video cards I’ve current got installed in my system. If you’re looking for the better card in terms of quality and price, the results may surprise you…

I’ve got a Pure3D LX 3dfx and an Eontronics Picasso i740 card installed in my system and I ran some Quake2 benchmarks. Here are the results:

Relevant System Info:

• PII 300 (not overclocked)
• 128MB RAM Canopus Pure3D LX in a PCI slot
• Eontronics Picasso i740 in the AGP slot

Canopus Pure3D LX:

• Cost: $150 CDN (was an awesome deal four months ago)
• fps (512x384): 34.4
• fps (640x480): 23.4
• (screenshot no longer available)

Eontronics Picasso:

• Cost: $115 CDN
• fps (512x384): 38.7
• fps (640x480): 37.2
• (screenshot no longer available)

The screenshots were taken in the same spot in the game at 640x480 and saved as JPEGs with 95% image quality. While I run the game under the Pure3D, it seems to have a “cartoonish” look to it. As well, some of the textures seem to be a little blurred (take the broken pillar just to the right of the player as an example). The darker image of the i740 may reduce its blurring effect, however.

Look at the awesome display of coloured lighting on the floor to either side of the door in the i740 version. The boys and girls of Intel put a lot of effort into the visual aspects of this card.

Personally, I’ve grown to like the ambience in the i740 version over the 3dfx-rendered one. I guess this is just a personal opinion so feel free to post a rebuttle. As soon as Unreal supports the i740 chipset properly (and vice-versa), I’m going to sell the 3dfx to someone without an AGP port.

The config.cfg file used to run the benchmarks is no longer available.