Permedia 2 Board Goes to the Exxtreme

Tuesday, Creative Labs announced a new lineup of high-end graphic accelerators based on the Permedia 2 chip from 3Dlabs. The Graphics Blaster Exxtreme line will support 2D and 3D on the same card.

The new trio of cards starts with the Graphics Blaster Exxtreme Value Edition for US$129.99, the Graphics Blaster Exxtreme Home Edition for $149.99, and the Graphics Blaster Exxtreme Professional Edition for $199.99.

Features of the board are definitely those on every 3D gamer's list. Finally Windows NT users aren't left in the dark with accelerated drivers for NT and for Windows 95. Support for OpenGL under both Windows 95 and Windows NT will be achieved via Installable Client Drivers. DirectX 5.0 is supported with Direct3D and DirectDraw support. Upgrading the board has a limit of 8MB SGRAM or a DVD daughtercard that will supply full frame-rate playback.

Technically the board graces gamers with fast 100MHz of SGRAM (the value model comes with 4MB SGRAM and the other two models have 8MG of SGRAM), a 230MHz DAC for high resolution support up to 1600x1200 at 65,000 colors, and MPEG support. For 3D addicts: the Exxtreme supports bilinear filtering, true per-pixel perspective correction, and full triangle setup.

Games to be enclosed with the board have not been decided upon at this stage but we expect to receive a listing soon to see what games will shine on this blazingly fast board. Until then, we'll play around and let you know how the board performs under 2D and 3D applications.