Around the same time frame that Nvidia GeForce 2 GTS-equipped video cards will begin shipping to retail next month, another high-end-oriented video chipset is due to lure consumers to part with their hard-earned dollars.

This new chip design, named VSA-100 by parent developer 3dfx, will be offered on video cards from the company in single-, dual-, and even quadruple-chip packages. The dual- and quadruple-chip cards (imaginatively named Voodoo5 5500 and Voodoo5 6000) promise to offer similar levels of speed and capability as the singular GeForce 2 GTS chip-based cards, according to 3dfx's marketing and technical personnel.

We'll know more when we evaluate and test the first retail versions of the Voodoo5 lineup soon. You can bet we'll be comparing them in a variety of areas with the GeForce 2 GTS cards on multiple PCs.

Not to be left out, Matrox and ATI also have new graphics products in the pipeline for mid- to late-summer introductions. In particular, ATI's new chip architecture, named Radeon 256, looks promising, thanks to its unique ability to process three texture maps per each of its two graphics pipelines per clock cycle.

It looks like consumers will soon have to choose from a plethora of next-generation video card options from a host of different manufacturers, and that's never a bad thing in our book. Clearly we're headed for another hot summer for PC hardware. Better save your pennies and load up on SPF 30 lotion.

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