Thresh's FiringSquad heeft een comparison klaar gezet tussen de Diamond Viper II en de GeForce 256 SDR. Als testmethode zijn Quake 3 Arena en Unreal Tournament gebruikt, (3DMark 2000 is vanwege zijn twijfelachtige betrouwbaarheid achterwege gelaten). Net zoals eerder Hard OCP al ontdekte heeft het activeren van T&L op beide kaarten inderdaad een negatief effect in hoge resolties en 32-bit kleur. Verder wint de GeForce SDR het qua performance wel, maar is de Viper II volgens FS vanwege zijn prijs / prestatie verhouding toch wel een goede keus voor de budget Quaker:
We see from the benchmarks that the Viper II performs very well in Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, which are two of the most popular games right now. This isn't a fluke. You can bet that S3 made sure to tweak drivers just to optimize performance for those two games. The Viper II might not perform as well with less popular non-multitextured games. The Viper II drivers are still a work in progress. It's been almost three months since the card's release, and T&L still isn't even officially supported yet. Anyone who buys a Viper II should understand and be comfortable with the fact that drivers will be in a constant beta state.If you're primarily a Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament player, then the Viper II might be a good choice. Also, if DVD performance has any influence in your buying decision, the Viper II wins hands-down, but you better get a good software DVD player.