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So in general you can get a good idea of the performance just by looking at reviews for the S3 Virge DX. While it was one of the most notoriously slow cards of the era for 3D, it was a solid 2D card. Additionally there was a vast build quality gap across the various vendors, where some were running at basically half the clock rate of the fastest boards (or well, least slow) with horrible, noisy output.

If you're just interested in reviews, a member here puts together some very nice reviews of 3D cards from this era. This would probably be enough to paint a clear picture for you.

https://www.vintage3d.org/virgedx.php

One specific question I can answer is that there essentially is no rare, valuable Virge card out there. They were affordable, sold by the truckload, and plenty are still out there and available for retro builds. I think it would be a bit of a waste chasing down any one specific model if you wanted to experience it again and I'd highly recommend just looking for a a good price on any well made, decently clocked Virge.

It is nice card for its purpose: DOS gaming and very early 3D. Asus card should be better than no name ones. I personally like them.
Although it is not so rare. It uses video chip that was very common for its time and doesn't offer anything extra. Maybe because it was one of the earliest Asus video cards it can be problematic to find one.

DrAnthony wrote on 2024-03-24, 15:11:

One specific question I can answer is that there essentially is no rare, valuable Virge card out there. They were affordable, sold by the truckload, and plenty are still out there and available for retro builds. I think it would be a bit of a waste chasing down any one specific model if you wanted to experience it again and I'd highly recommend just looking for a a good price on any well made, decently clocked Virge.

I agree that there is no point in chasing a specific model to try the S3 Virge experience. Even common unnamed cards can usually be overclocked to the level of expensive ones without problems. Though their output quality can be abysmal.
However, rarer and more interesting Virges still exist. This VIVO (!) Virge GX2-based card on PCI bus (!) with memory expansion board is very unusual: Re: your last purchased retro graphics card or any of your collection

According to a screenshot I found it has 2MB RAM with 35ns soldered and for sockets to add another 2MB RAM.
35ns is pretty good for a Virge DX. The excellent Nitro 3D comes with either 35ns or 30ns RAM. I once bought a card from a different brand on ebay which has 25ns RAM which is quite insane. Voodoo2 cards have 25ns RAM, the Virge DX probably can't be clocked fast enough to take advantage of such fast RAM.
It is quite possible that the card's BIOS does not clock the chip high enough to take advantage of the fast RAM so you might want to overclock it.
2MB is fine for 2D, but for 3D you would want 4MB. Maybe your card already has 4MB, but if not all of it is soldered you would need to check if all RAM chips are of the same speed.

For 3D, the card (like all Virge cards) is interesting either for games that use the native S3D API (see 3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D) for a list) or for seeing what the experience with the first 3D accelerators was like. For actually playing early 3D accelerated games there are many graphics chips that are better suited, starting with the first Voodoo.

25ns is 100MHz for EDO and that's definitely not reachable by any S3 Virge DX card.

idspispopd wrote on 2025-09-03, 08:47:

For 3D, the card (like all Virge cards) is interesting either for games that use the native S3D API (see 3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D) for a list) or for seeing what the experience with the first 3D accelerators was like. For actually playing early 3D accelerated games there are many graphics chips that are better suited, starting with the first Voodoo.

Unlike the Voodoo the ViRGE can render 32 bit textures in a 32 bit video mode. I don't know that any S3d game did that but the API allows it and it looks good with a card that has good output quality. S3d is a simple API to program with so you could make some good looking small games yourself to run on a 2 MB ViRGE.