The second major feature of the Rage Fury Pro versus the previous Rage Fury card is the inclusion of a video capturing ability that's similar to ATI's own more expensive All-In-Wonder 128 product line.

In our opinion, this is a very savvy move by ATI's design crew.What they're effectively trying to do here is take some wind out of 3dfx's Voodoo3-3500 TV sails before that part can gets well established in the market.

Whether or not prospective V3-3500 TV buyers will wait it out until the Rage Fury Pro debuts in late October though remains to be seen. If the Rage Fury Pro turns out to be a more feature rich product, which, it seems to be shaping up as based on its early specs then that wait might not seem very hard.

Here are a few examples of differences between the two cards:

Ram: Color Depth Max: Core Speed: Video Capture: DVD H. Motion Compensation: Integrated TV Tuner: Street Price (est.):

ATI Rage Fury Pro 32MB 32bpp 140 - 150MHz Yes Yes No $160 - $180

3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV 16MB 16bpp 183MHz Yes No Yes $220 - $235

It will be interesting to see how this battle shapes up in a head to head comparison when we receive the evaluation Rage Fury Pro card for review (we've been told to expect this to occur within the next four weeks).

Details concerning the new card's software bundle haven't been finalized by ATI at this point, and there are still a few marketing issues that have yet to be sorted out as well. The hardware design phase itself however is nearly finished and we'll keep you updated as to when Sharky Extreme will be able to produce a hands-on preview of the new card with full benchmarking.

For a look at the full ATI press release, go here.

Craig Campanaro
Hardware Editor