A green 3Dfx Banshee prototype. I have a similar board with different RAM and a slightly older PCB. Some brands copied 3Dfx' reference design, the Skywell Magic TwinPower is a good example of that. This card is the reference layout for SGRAM boards. It runs fine and has an engineering tag which says the following (front-side):

PCB # A 553
Pass short
ROM V10001A.ET
Pass speedy & unreal
Special DRAM bios
loaded 9/18/98

SGRAM AGP 0043-01

And on the backside:

Mem test complete
9/21/98
Special BIOS 9/05/98

> Read more

I have two of these boards which are nearly identical. This has two chips installed near the feature connector. The pictures of the other card show no chips.

This card comes with an engineering tag. It says the following (as far as I can read):

PCB# B096
Pass short
RomJ10001N-SD
Pass Speedy & unreal
Pass NFk
Austin diags OK

SDRAM AGP 0035-03

I don't know what the engineers mean exactly with 'speedy' for example. Probably the name of a test or a game. 'Austin Diags' I do know, thanks to an ex-3dfx engineer . It's more like some test-teams (deparments) had their own name and this card passed the test-team 'Austin'. > Read more

A prototype 3Dfx Banshee, though it's close to a production Banshee like the Innovision Mighty3D. Today companies copy the reference design but back in 1998 it was less common. In other words: you can find Banshee's in all kind of shapes even though the design of 3Dfx works fine .

This sample didn't come with a heatsink but for sure one is needed to run the card. Never apply power to a Banshee without a heatsink installed as it will overheat fairly quick. > Read more

An engineering sample which looks a lot like this sample. This board is 3Dfx' reference design. The difference between the other Banshee can be found in production date of the PCB and the used RAM chips. This PCB is two weeks older. > Read more