D espite the stories being posted around the Web today, the Mac version of 3dfxis Voodoo5 5500 PCI card is not yet widely available. 3dfx issued a press release late yesterday saying that the card was indeed available, but that release is for the PC version of the card, not the Mac version.
The Mac Observer contacted 3dfx to find out exactly what the status is on the Mac version of the card. A 3dfx representative assured us that the card has indeed shipped, but is not available on retail shelves...yet. "We have heard reports of it popping up in different places, so I imagine it will be less than a week before the card is actually available on store shelves," said a 3dfx representative.
The Voodoo5 marks the first natively supported Mac card from the gaming powerhouse 3dfx. It also marks the first of the next generation 3D accelerators. The Voodoo5 card features the new VSA-100 chip, and is the first card capable of offering Full-Scene Anti Aliasing without reworking the game code itself. That means that each and every game will receive an immediate upgrade with the addition of the Voodoo5, something that our early tests have shown to be true. By way of comparison, the forthcoming Radeon card from ATI, while packing enormous power itself, requires special game-level programing to take full advantage of the cardis features.
When the card is available and 3dfx has finalized the drivers, we will post an in-depth look at the new Voodoo5 5500 PCI.