Mike Andrawes van Anandtech heeft een flinke review online gezet over de Retail Voodoo5 5500. De review is zoals we gewent zijn van Anandtech erg volledig (lees: lang...) en bevat genoeg informatie om zelfs de meest fanatieke holbewoner weer helemaal up to date te brengen. Daarnaast heeft heeft deze review ook nog nuttige informatie over het tweaken van de image kwaliteit door middel van het veranderen van de LOD (Level of Detail) waarde. Anandtech's conclusie is dezelfde als die van vele andere reviewers: als je voor brute snelheid gaat moet je de GeForce2 aanschaffen, maar als je niet te veel fillrate intensieve games speelt en je vindt image kwaliteit belangrijk moet je bij de Voodoo5 5500 zijn:
Could have, would have, should have doesn't matter for today. What we have today is the Voodoo5 5500 that 3dfx needs to do reasonably well to keep them afloat until their next generation product. We previewed the Voodoo5 5500 back in April, but final silicon and drivers have finally arrived in the AnandTech lab and boards are now available after one last compatibility related delay. Let's take a look and see if the Voodoo5 5500 has a chance.
[...] FSAA is where the Voodoo5 5500 really shines - it's performance is close to that of the GeForce 2 GTS, but the image quality is noticeably better, at least in our opinion. Whether you need the FSAA effects or not is entirely up to the individual gamer to decide on. If the focus of your game play is first person shooters where high frame rate is critical and there's little time to notice eye candy, then you probably won't get any real benefit from the FSAA support of the Voodoo5. On the other hand, if you're really into racing games or flight simulators where frame rate is less critical and there's more time to take in the visuals, then FSAA definitely comes in very useful.
[...] It basically comes down to this - if you want the fastest frame rates possible, go with the GeForce 2 GTS. For the best price / performance ratio, the current leader appears to be the GeForce 2 MX. Once again, the trump card that 3dfx currently holds is their higher quality FSAA implementation. Let's hope that is enough to allow the Voodoo5 5500 to carry them over until the release of the Voodoo5 6000 and/or their next generation product. That next generation product will be the key to 3dfx's future in the 3D accelerator market - they must have it out in time to compete with the NVIDIA NV20, rumored to be coming this fall, and it must match the NV20's performance.