OpenGL Workstation Power - Graphics Cards for the Professional User

Elsa Gloria III - Best Bang For The Buck

NVIDIA's march on the graphics card market isn't specific to OpenGL systems. Unlike the Fire GL series or 3Dlabs's Wildcat, NVIDIA swoops in from an entirely different direction. While its competitors have many years of experience using OpenGL systems, the Quadro2 Pro is nothing more than a slightly modified version of the 3D gaming chip GeForce2. A word of warning to skeptics - the Quadro2 Pro on the Elsa Gloria III packs quite a wallop. While its predecessor, the Gloria II (Quadro chip) , had a hard time gaining widespread acceptance, NVIDIA has learned some new tricks to become an old dog at OpenGL graphics. By recently establishing a technological partnership with ELSA , the 3D chip giant has effectively bought itself Elsa's long-standing driver expertise and OpenGL know-how. The relationship is bearing fruit - the Gloria III gets good scores in numerous benchmarks. Its rendering quality has also improved considerably in comparison to previous tests.

Of the cards in this review, only the Gloria III is available from retailers. Users who want to build their own workstations can purchase this product for approximately $1,000 through retail channels.