Almost as important as your CPU selection, the type of video accelerator needed for massive fill rates and sustaining the CPU's potential polygon throughput is critical for frame rate success.
In particular, three video accelerator chips on the market today offer amazing power and capabilities beyond the rest of the crowd. They are as follows:
3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV (183/183Mhz)
Matrox G400 MAX (150/200MHz)
NVIDIA TNT2 Ultra (150/183MHz)
Out of the three chip selections, we chose the fastest chip/card we've ever tested, the Hercules Dynamite TNT2 Ultra. Unfortunately, Hercules is no longer shipping Dynamite TNT2 cards as they've ceased doing business for all intents and purposes. That leaves buyers seeking the fastest TNT2 card possible left with the Falcon Northwest-Guillemot Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 SE ($349 ouch) as the fastest solution. We don't happen to have one of those on hand, so the Dynamite it is.
The Dynamite is set to operate at a default speed of 175/200MHz (as opposed to NVIDIA's default TNT2 Ultra card speeds of 150/183MHz), the card lives up to its name in the performance department. Shockingly, it even allows a user to overclock it beyond its high stock speeds, usually maxing out around a 190/230MHz level.
Our particular Dynamite TNT2 Ultra evaluation card had proven itself to be stable up to a speed of 193/234MHz while using the standard fan/heatsink provided by Hercules. But we sensed the potential for more power production, and we thus removed the standard cooler and replaced it with a homemade fan/heatsink roughly three times the size of the standard unit.
Because of the size difference between the standard cooler and our improved unit, we automatically gave up the usage of the PCI slot that's closest to the AGP port that the Dynamite rests in.
Thanks to the improved airflow and heatsink size, we were able to stabilize our Dynamite card at 200/240MHz, and briefly run the card as high as 204/240MHz before failure due to heat issues reared its ugly head.