Manufacturer: Guillemot Tech: PCI based 3Dfx Banshee board with 16Mb SGRAM Bundle: OEM Version of SiN, Half-Life: Day One and another full title, which is yet to be confirmed Price: $129

As you know I've already dabbled with Diamond's Voodoo Banshee offering and have also tested a 3Dfx reference board into the bargain. But this Maxi Gamer Phoenix is the first actual Voodoo Banshee product that I've been able to review in-full. This is the final product or the full monty if you like. And hats off to Guillemot for not putting my already 'sore' NDA signing fingers into action. What good sports you all are! First things first, it was honestly a real pleasure to be hammering on a finished product for a change. Gone was the dread that accompanies any FedEx delivery of a plain brown box & hand labeled CD that signals a beta hardware review. None of that begging and pleading for the drivers to behave properly by getting an immature board to play nice with the rest of my test systems. A humiliating ordeal that invariably proceeds to ranting and stomping, my cats observing in mock horror their crazed food provider finding new depths of profanity. Yep, I've done a few too many recently, so nothing like smooth benchmarking to get that nasty 57th reboot in the last hour taste out of one's mouth. But back to the review...