ATI Rage Fury MAXX Preview

Conclusion

The Rage Fury MAXX plays an interesting role in the video card market right now. Overall, especially in high-resolution/32-bit color scenarios, it has a nice time beating the SDR GeForce at an equal price. So for those of you that have a fast enough CPU (Pentium III 450 or above), the Rage Fury MAXX makes for an excellent GeForce alternative while adding excellent support for DVD playback.

Those of you with slower CPUs may want to opt to stay away from the MAXX/GeForce debate entirely and just go after one of the recently price-reduced Voodoo3s or TNT2 Ultras which are still very serious performers.

Athlon owners won't find the highest performing solution in the Rage Fury MAXX, but then again they won't be disappointed by the card. The Athlon's match still seems to be the TNT2 Ultra, as it consistently performs noticeably better on the Athlon than it does on any Intel platform.

The true question boils down to how long you will be able to go without upgrading. If you are going to upgrade in another 6 - 8 months then going with the Rage Fury MAXX over the competition won't be too big of a problem, simply because once games begin to take advantage of hardware T&L you will be ready to upgrade to the next generation of video cards with more advanced hardware T&L support. On the other hand, if you are determined on keeping your next video card for much longer than that 6 - 8 month period you may want to consider the GeForce or the Savage 2000, having hardware T&L support on your card will increase the longevity of your investment. While the Savage 2000 currently doesn't have an enabled hardware T&L engine, well before the end of Q1 2000 we will see hardware T&L support for the Savage 2000 under OpenGL making it a viable option for the longevity category.

In the end it comes down to this, if you want performance now, especially in 32-bit color, the Rage Fury MAXX is obviously the way to go. ATI's raw power solution delivers exactly what they promise in a very attractive package. If you want a long lasting investment (as if one existed in this ever changing market), then you're better off with a card that features hardware T&L like the GeForce or the Savage 2000.

Kudos to ATI on a job well done with the Rage Fury MAXX, but weigh your purchasing decision carefully based on what we just discussed.

If ATI could bring the price of the Rage Fury MAXX down to the level of the Savage 2000 or even below that, then the Rage Fury MAXX would easily become the card to get, unfortunately that is nothing more that a holiday wish from us at AnandTech.