Manufacturer: Metabyte Tech: AGP based 3Dfx Banshee with 16Mb SDRAM Bundle: Nada Price: $149

3Dfx's Banshee 2D/3D chip is now in full production, so all of the different Banshee-based cards are nearing their announced ship dates.

The latest Banshee equipped card to arrive at the SharkyExtreme Harware Center for evaluation and review is the 16MB "Vengeance" model from Metabyte.

Coming off a large degree of sales success with their Wicked3D line of Voodoo2 cards, Metabyte decided earlier this year that a Banshee-based card would be a perfect addition to their solid product lineup. Combined with their impressive "Re2Flex Drivers" which have been very successful of late on their Wicked3D boards, the "Vengeance" would offer consumers a good deal of value for a moderate cost. Along for the ride with the Vengeance would be Metabyte's partnership with 3D glasses vendor H3D, in the form of a "WickedVision" package to add true 3D visuals to almost any type of game.

(SharkyExtreme has previously reviewed the H3D system from Metabyte, and that review can be found here.)

Thanks to the unique Re2Flex drivers that Metabyte's software engineers have developed, the Vengeance offers the largest variety of custom Win95/98 and Direct3D/Glide resolutions of any competitor's card.

Here are the maximum rez rates for the Vengeance and at what color depth:

Win95/98 Desktop: Direct3D: Glide:

2000 x 1500 x 8/16/24/32bpp 1920 x 1440 x 8/16bpp (no z) 1920 x 1440 x 8/16bpp (no z)