Nvidia, PNY offer ultimate insult with 3Dfx rebate

[Phydeaux{RoA}]

This is ripped straight from NVNews.net:

"Got Voodoo? - 11/28/2001 8:28 am
PNY's discounting the price of their GeForce lineup to all Voodoo owners interested in crossing over to the dark side.

3dfx Owners Can Now Trade in Their Voodoo Graphics Card for a Verto(TM) Graphics Cards Featuring NVIDIA's High-Performance GPUs


PARSIPPANY, N.J. and SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- NVIDIA® Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA - news), in conjunction with PNY Technologies, announced today the ``Got Voodoo - Get Verto'' online redemption promotion for 3dfx(TM) Voodoo(TM) graphics card owners. For a limited time, end-users can trade in their Voodoo graphics cards with the purchase of select models of PNY Verto graphics cards for a cash-back rebate. In addition, an NVIDIA ForceWare(TM) Game CD, which features a selection of games and applications optimized for advanced graphics technology will be included."

Ok, I admit - I was curious. In a moment of weakness I went to the old 3Dfx site and (after digging through page after page of marketing schmag detailing how great Nvidia and PNY are) finally got down to the business end of things (you may want to avert your eyes):


HOW TO GET YOUR VERTO/VOODOO REBATE
Promotion valid from November 26, 2001 to January 15, 2002

Trade-in your old Voodoo card when you buy a select PNY Verto graphics card and get Cash Back PLUS NVIDIA Forceware Game CD FREE!

The following is a list of the eligible Verto cards and rebate amounts:

VERTO CARD REBATE
GeForce 3 Ti 500
$30

GeForce 2 Ti 200
$15

GeForce 2 MX400 AGP
$10

GeForce 2 MX400 PCI
$10

All I can say is that, as a loyal 3Dfx owner, this is a slap in the face. You seriously think that I'm going to trade in a world-class video card that premiered for $399 for a mere 30 bucks? You can *still* get a Voodoo 5 card off Pricewatch for a range that runs between $89 and $169! For a card that's dead, done, finito, it continues to hold value (for every OS short of XP). Somebody tell that to Nvidia, quick...

As for me, I've been on the fence (honestly) between ATI and Nvidia - I'm not about to let emotion color what ultimately has to be a cold, hard decision based on benchmarks, gaming performance in the games I play today, price, performance, and longevity. However, with this kind of insult, I am *very* tempted to say (all together now) "screw Nvidia and the PNY they rode in on."

This is mild-mannered Phy, out.

[Syri]

i think this is a very fair offer. think about it. 3Dfx are no longer around, so support for 3Dfx cards is getting scarse. there's more and more issues arrisingregarding 3Dfx cards all the time. It's getting to the point now where it's almost impossible to sell these cards second hand even! If you found someone who wanted to buy a 2nd hand 3dfx card, it's doubtful they'd pay $30 even, so to me, this seems a good offer at allowing users of an outdated and unsupported card to make an upgrade to a better performing and better supported card

[Loibisch]

Well, I too think that that $30 thing is a pos offer. Hell, remember, recently (a month ago) Gainward had a similar offer, and iirc it was $70-$75 they offered for ANY 3dfx card down to the voodoo graphics if you bought a GF3 off them.

Actually the idea is a total ripoff of the idea Gainward had, but nVidia really wants to screw you over.

[No Soup For You]

Those aren't Voodoo cards!?

[Phydeaux{RoA}]

Originally posted by [RSU]D-Stroya
i think this is a very fair offer. think about it. 3Dfx are no longer around, so support for 3Dfx cards is getting scarse. there's more and more issues arrisingregarding 3Dfx cards all the time. It's getting to the point now where it's almost impossible to sell these cards second hand even! If you found someone who wanted to buy a 2nd hand 3dfx card, it's doubtful they'd pay $30 even, so to me, this seems a good offer at allowing users of an outdated and unsupported card to make an upgrade to a better performing and better supported card

This is an interesting sentiment but not relevant to Phydeaux's First Law of Gaming - buy the best video card for what you do the most today for the lowest price. The Voodoo 5 still provides the best UT bang-for-the buck on the planet if you're running anything short of WinXP (and some have had success there, too, just not me).

First off, I concede that 3Dfx is out of business. Having said that, there is still tremendous grass-roots support with driver updates continuing to appear on a weekly basis. The FSAA implementation is still top-notch and I don't play UT (Glide, WinME) without 4x FSAA because I like being able to see crisp details at a great distance (especially for the CTF LGI 135/35 mode of gameplay that I favor). Viewing UT in WinXP with D3D was a *really* disheartening experience. The jaggies alone were like a step back into the Pong age compared to the FSAA that the Voodoo 5 churns out.

As far as "more and more issues" is concerned, the only biggie that I'm aware of is that Nvidia did not provide MS with Glide support for WinXP. The cards still work fine for D3D and OpenGL games.

For resale, they're selling, new, between $89 and $169 on Pricewatch and between $45 and $120 on e-bay. There is clearly a demand for what was once the hottest video card around and is *still* a very powerful card for certain systems. When I upgrade after Christmas, my kids' computer will be inheriting the Voodoo 5 and that's a huge step up from their Hercules MX card. There will be much praise for their "ugrade".

Finally, at 64 megs and with very functional FSAA, this is not at all an outdated card, it just no longer leads the pack. It's still supported by the grass-roots fanbase. If you're still limping along with a TNT2 or MX product, the Voodoo 5 is a fine upgrade at a great price point and will rock your world on a budget if you're a UT fan.

So, yeah, I'm offended that a company of PNY's fine reputation (sarcasm) is deigning to offer a whole 30 bucks for what was the most powerful consumer video card on the planet (not counting the elusive Voodoo 5 6000). I'd consider 50 bucks off a GF3 Ti 200 (which, in fact, Best Buy did this last weekend - $199 - $50 in-store discount - $50 mail-in rebate). But 30 bucks off an overpriced GF3? No thanks.

[Aside - c'mon ATI - I need an alternative here!]

[SludgeX]

Well Phydeaux, I just paid $200 even for a Radeon 8500 OEM to replace my (aging) Voodoo 5 5500. It's the perfect alternative for your Voodoo.

In a strange coincedence, I was originally going to purchase the PNY GeForce3 Ti200 for $180 until I stumbled across the Radeon 8500 for $200. A 30-40% speed increase for only $20 more seemed like a good deal to me, so I went for it.

So long 3Dfx. It's been fun for the last 4 years, but it was time to move on to bigger, and (somewhat) better things.

[SkaarjMaster]

Yeah, I think this is a slap in the face for Voodoo owners. Of course, all I have is a small Voodoo 2 12 MB (but an ATI Rage Fury 32MB is plugged into this as 2 cards, but only one can run at once). I use the ATI for most of my games and the V2 for games that will only run with or run better with this card. Used V2 for Unreal, but haven't been able to notice a difference running UT (D3D for ATI, Glide for Voodoo). I run UT using the ATI, because it's supposed to have better graphics. Apparently, from some test results I've seen, the ATI card runs just a little better than V2, but not much. The Voodoo3 3000, which my brother owns, apparently runs better than my ATI.

Wanted to get a Voodoo 5 5500, but the timing wasn't right. Now, I'll probably get a GeForce 3 Ti 500. Does this run UT just as well as the V5 5500? Of course, I'm going to wait a bit for the price to go down. Also, considering the ATI Radeon 8500.

SkaarjMaster

[hyrulian]

I'm not letting go of my Voodoo 3 3000 PCI card !!

[Exar Kun [Sith]]

This offer is a joke. I got my V5 for $130 and it's been the best money I've spent upgradeing from my v3 2k. I could trade the v3 in for the 30 rebate but I bet if I put it up on ebay I could get more for it. Plus the v3 is pci and I'm hanging on to it as a backup card incase of emergencies. The V5 runs great I've heard of games having probs with it but I've ran the wolf mp2 test, ran fine, ran the ghost recon demo max everything, ran fine and people have had probs with it and it does say in the readme that the V5 is unsupported by this game. I've run avp2 single and multy play demos and has ran fine. I'm using the last offical driver set from 3dfx on win me. So I fell it will last me for quite awhile, I'll probably upgrade sometime down the road by then the Radeon 8500 will be in my price range and the drivers have improved.

[Phydeaux{RoA}]

...and I feel you have to watch them closely to get what you're looking for. I'm interested in the 8500 (retail) *if* they get one more driver drop that will cause UT performance to improve. I'm not interested in the OEM flavor because it's slightly underpowered compared to the Retail version.

I bought the Voodoo 5 for UT under WinME. I'm interested in a retail 8500 for UT under WinXP *if* I can find one for ~ $200 (the price range where I picked up my Voodoo card, ironically) sometime after Christmas. If not, I'll bite my lip and pick up a regular Gainward GF3 (*not* Ti), apply the best Detonator XP drivers, and overclock it just a little.

I just won't let them steal my Voodoo card for a song...

[Please, ATI, now's your chance! Hone your drivers and knock one out of the parK!]

[pine]

Originally posted by Phydeaux{RoA}

First off, I concede that 3Dfx is out of business. Having said that, there is still tremendous grass-roots support with driver updates continuing to appear on a weekly basis.

Only in this industry could a company go from the dominating presence to out of business with "grass-roots" support in a matter of a couple years. It's simply amazing.

This rebate is just a slap in the face. You're right. And if 3dfx were still alive it would be considered very dirty business tactics.

[Prophetus]

I understand and appreciate loyalty to quality products. I was the same way with the Amiga. When the announcement hit the Amiga community that no more Amigas would be supported by mainstream developers, I was outraged.

I was so upset, I completely left the computer scene. I hated IBM and IBM compatible computers. To me, they were inferior to the Amiga. However, IBM compatible computers became the new breed and because of my loyalty, I lost valuable experience and time during the computer era. It wasn't until three years ago I finally jumped back onto the computer bandwagon.

Moral of the story...

I learned being loyal to a product is a worthless endeavor and will eventually hinder your ability to personally advance. I'm not saying you must accept lower quality products, but don't be too loyal to any corporation...they really don't care. Sure, some products are worth being loyal to, but not in the computer universe. Times and formats change too quickly with anything related to computers...we must often bite the bullet and move on or be left behind.

[Tarantella]

Ive had my v5 running trouble free for a year now and until a better game than UT comes along I willl stick with it thankyou

[cryco]

Amigas RULED!!!!!
They were so ahead of IBM. *sigh*
Remember those dungeon master games? Or that other game with 4 players that split the screen and you have missions on different outposts and planets.. what the heck was the name of that one?

[Exar Kun [Sith]]

Well, I will upgrade one day but for now I'll just use the V5. What made me mad was the nvidia trolls (not everyone who owns a geforce card are bad) went around bad mouthing people who owned 3dfx cards right after 3dfx went under claiming that these cards were already obselete and that 3dfx card owners had to change immediately to a geforce card and no other brand. If I asked "what about a radeon or kyro 2?" they would go "no, those cards suck there is only one way".

Plus I find the FSAA quality on the V5 extremely good. The reason I'm looking at a radeon 8500 is that I hear it's fsaa quality is getting as good as a V5 and is cheaper than the geforce 3. I've seen comparision shots of both and right now the radeon 8500 has the better quality between the 2.

[Loibisch]

Originally posted by Prophetus
I learned being loyal to a product is a worthless endeavor and will eventually hinder your ability to personally advance. I'm not saying you must accept lower quality products, but don't be too loyal to any corporation...they really don't care. Sure, some products are worth being loyal to, but not in the computer universe. Times and formats change too quickly with anything related to computers...we must often bite the bullet and move on or be left behind.

I agree with you, partially. While the death of the Amiga clearly was something to me that struck me hard you gotta see that it's way another league. You can't compare the death of a whole computer system with 3dfx (it's only gfx cards ). It's not like I have to trash all my hard and software jsut because 3dfx isn't around anymore.
That said I think it's a good thing to look for alternatives to nVidia cards, the company that did so many things to upset and "convert" the 3dfx community.
If I'm gonna get a new gfx card my money is with ATI .

Originally posted by cryco
Amigas RULED!!!!!
They were so ahead of IBM. *sigh*
Remember those dungeon master games? Or that other game with 4 players that split the screen and you have missions on different outposts and planets.. what the heck was the name of that one?

I think you're talking of "Hired Guns"

[cryco]

yea!!!! hIREd gUNS, Woo0000ttt
How the heck did you remember? My description was semi-vague...

My buddies and I spent countless hours on that baby. Crazy game.

[Sir_Brizz]

I wouldn't buy anything from ATI. I remember the old days, when they touted wonderful graphics and TV-OUT!!! but then started on fire if you tried to REALLY do anything with them. The Radeon comes with a beautifully deisnged driver - Give up for the fake performance they want you to believe you have! >:-(

As far as the topic goes.... Atari? Does anyone remember Atari? I can remember back when Atari was the best. Everything was made for Atari, and now...well now you can't even buy an Atari, or anything similar. Does anyone know why Apple still exists? I sure as heck don't....

[Domon]

Originally posted by Sir_Brizz
Does anyone know why Apple still exists? I sure as heck don't....

Apple still exists because of the Macintosh. Macs are used in many gaming companies because of their strength in graphic work. Y'know, like Photoshop, Lightwave, Illustrator... those kinds of things.

I'm gonna end up buying a GeForce 2 (or something like that), though... that is, unless I can find a card that can handle video editing AND 3D acceleration.

[edit]Forgot to answer the question more directly, and did so.[/edit]

[hal]

I've been a Voodoo owner for years, and as sad as untimely demise of the V5 is, I'm forced to ask the question:

What's so insulting (other than just being a ridiculously small rebate) about offering cash for trading in your card? The amount is so small that nobody that still uses their card, and plays UT would seriously be swayed by it. The only people that will jump on that offer are the ones that are looking for a card that has features the V5 doesn't have.

nVidia didn't kill the Voodoo cards... 3dfx did it with their poor fiscal management.