Professional 3D cards have always performed poorly in games due to the lower fillrate of their graphics processors and the need for accurate rendering. So, professional users who enjoy 3D games as much as the rest of us have had to add a separate gaming card like the nVidia GeForce 256GTS.

Not only does such a solution cost more, it inevitably introduces some performance and configuration problems. After all, there's only one AGP slot so one of the cards will have to use the slower PCI slot and there will be the additional hassle of selecting which card to use when booting the computer. That's unless you are willing to subject yourself to the hassle of changing AGP cards... And last but not least, with graphics cards consuming more and more power, you will need to check if your power supply unit (PSU) and motherboard is able to provide sufficient power to support the extra graphics card.

Needless to say, the ideal solution would be a single card that is able to handle the needs of a professional user while still able to run the latest 3D games at an acceptable framerate. Such a card should combine a high fillrate and a high polygon throughput with an excellent rendering precision ability.

However, no sane manufacturer would try to create a card that would be both the best in professional applications and in games because that would entail incredible amounts of effort and money to create while the market for such a card would be a small one at best. After all, most users would be content with just a 3D gaming card and who would want pay for features they won't use? Remember, not only will the cost of the board be much more expensive than the most expensive professional card, the manufacturer has also to contend with providing solid drivers and support for both professional applications and those buggy games that we have all come to know and love. What a nightmare it would be for them!

So, those few companies that are trying to blur the distinction between a professional 3D rendering card and a gaming card are doing so by either increasing the fillrate of their lower-end professional cards or increasing the polygon throughput and improving the rendering precision of their high-end gaming cards. The most recent cards vying for this sub-professional market are powered by chips from nVidia. nVidia's GeForce line of GPUs (GeForce 256, Quadro, GeForce 256GTS) have pushed the performance of 3D gaming cards up to the point that they have the potential to challenge professional 3D solutions on their own turf. However, rendering accuracy of those GPUs still leaves much to be desired.

3Dlabs, long-time professional 3D card company, has also entered the fray. Famous for their professional 3D cards, they have never gained much of a reputation in the gaming community because like all other professional 3D solutions, their cards perform poorly in games. However, a card for the sub-professional market isn't too much a stretch for their expertise in developing award-winning professional cards, they probably felt that they had an excellent chance of making it big in that market as well.

Instead of designing a game-oriented graphics processor (something which they have very little experience of), they decided to revamp their value-level Permedia2 design instead and add as many gaming features as they could, including a relatively high fillrate and complete DirectX and OpenGL support. What they got in the end is a highly affordable professional 3D solution with gaming features that are the envy of other professional cards.