Intel had previously disclosed most of the information presented, so we were already in the know; namely the Pentium 4 with its 20-stage pipeline results in an overall lower IPC (instructions per clock) but is compensated for by the dramatic frequency increase. Those who purchase Pentium 4 OEM boxed processors will be delighted to find twin 64MB RIMM modules included. Although prices for RDRAM memory have fallen, the inclusion of 128MB to populate those twin channels will more than likely ease the transition from Pentium III to Pentium 4. We also found out that the power consumption of the upcoming processor is around 50W – reason enough to justify that large heatsink required to cool the P4.

Get the full explanation, benchmark results, and comparative analysis right here.

3dfx's presence at Comdex this year was significantly more subdued than we have seen previously. Rather than announce a new product, we received the explanation as to why the Voodoo5 6000 would never get a chance to prove itself on the retail market. Their suite did house a couple of these speed-demons, however, and we verified that in Quake III (1600x1200x32), the card was capable of 60+ frames per second (roughly 20% faster than our benchmark for the GeForce2 Ultra).

We were surprised to see an 8-way variation of the Voodoo5 6000 with 256MB of RAM (with the option for 512). Our attempts to steal the card were thwarted when Bubba Wolford, 3dfx's PR rep, reminded us that the card would likely require drivers and we did not have them. So much for 16-sample FSAA; at least we tried.

In addition, the recently launched VoodooTV 200 PCI was on display. Using the first “TV tuner on a chip,” the VoodooTV delivers impressive video quality on top of capture and record capabilities. Also included is FM broadcast reception with the ability to record MP3 files. For more information, check out our recent review of the VoodooTV 200 here.