Surprised to see 2D benchmarks floating around in the testing of a product that will be marketed almost solely for its 3D potential?

Don't be, we always try to answer as many questions regarding the products we measure before readers are forced to pose them to us. Plus, regardless of whether you're an avid gamer or not, you've got to use your 3D card for 2D purposes at least some of the time the PC is on.

We used Ziff-Davis' old, but credible, Business and High-End Graphics Winmark99 software to measure the relative 2D performance of the three cards in relation to one another. At next week's Comdex convention ZD will distribute their latest group of benchmarks, Winstone and WinBench 2000, and they can't come a minute too soon in our opinion.

The geriatric ZD 2D tests proved to be a mixed-bag for the three cards, with the MAXX winning the low-resolution, low intensity Business Graphics Winmark99 contest while the GeForce256 card set a new high score record in the High-End Graphics Winmark99 score.

In 2D mode, the Rage Fury MAXX shuts down the second on board Rage128Pro chip, and uses only one processor to throw graphics on and off the screen. It's not surprising to us then that both the GeForce256 and the TNT2 cards edged out the MAXX in the High-End Graphics Winmark99 test.