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What initially appears to be just another exactly the same Voodoo3 3000 AGP turns out to be slightly different again. I have a couple of Vooodoo3 3000's and some have different RAM-chips, a change in the sticker on the BIOS or differences in the 3dfx Avenger chip.

This card has a 2.15.07 sticker (most of my other cards have 1.0) and the Avenger chip is a newer revision (355-0024-030 instead of 355-0017-011). It also has the number 4 in the right corner. > Read more

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A regular Voodoo3 3000 PCI. I removed the heatsink to see which chip had been hiding for all those years: a 355-0024-030 . Part of the number is not visible in the picture because the letters stuck to the bottom of the glue on the heatsink . > Read more

On the outside it looked like an ordinary Voodoo3 3000 with a fairly early PCB-date. However, after removing the heatsink I found an interesting twist: the 355-0017-010 chip is used in both the Voodoo3 2000 and 3000 cards but early chips were rated 2000 or 3000. My card looks like a 3000 but apparently is fitted with a 2000 chip. > Read more

A Voodoo 3 3000 with the usual bits attached: 16MB 6NS RAM, TV-Out and a 'new' style 3dfx logo printed on the chip.

I have a couple of Voodoo 3 3000 cards. Some do appear to be identical at first glance but there are several small differences. A few being:
1. Voodoo 3 3000 with 'old' style 3Dfx logo.
2. Voodoo 3 3000 with original 3dfx box and Etrontech memory.
3. Voodoo 3 3000 for Dell systems.
4. Voodoo 3 3000 with made in China sticker.
5. Voodoo 3 3000 with newer BIOS (and sticker indicating 2.15.07)
6. Voodoo 3 3000 with 7NS RAM (should be 6NS or lower/faster).
7. Voodoo 3 3000 with 5.5NS RAM. > Read more

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I have a lot of Voodoo3 3000 cards with AGP-connector, but with PCI-connector tends to be more rare. This particular card even has Siemens memory chip which you don't see often on a Voodoo3 card! > Read more

A Voodoo3 3000 without TV-out. It's a Voodoo3 that once was in a Dell system. > Read more

This is an oddball as it has 7NS RAM modules meaning the RAM is specified for 143MHz! A normal 3000 should run at 166MHz and therefore use at least 6NS RAM. Firing this board up didn't work as I hoped as I had no VGA output. Luckily enough the system did recognize the card so I popped in a PCI card and booted Windows. I installed both the driver for the PCI card as the Voodoo3 driver and checked specifications with V-Control. I noticed 'AGP Enabled' and both 'AGP 1x' as 'AGP 2x' were not ticked. The clockfrequency was 143MHz so this is actually a Voodoo3 2000 with TV-out and a Voodoo3 3000 heatsink.

At the time I got the board I noticed that some capacitors near the RAM were missing. I replaced the capacitors but this didn't help in getting the board fixed. Notice that this Voodoo3 3000 is doing it's job with one capacitor less (See upper right of the board) and just works fine. > Read more

GARNET Systems is a Korean company which established in 1987. Despite the fact that 3dfx wanted to ship only their own boards, GARNET shipped these Voodoo3 boards in 1999. The PCB appears to be of good quality and differs compared to a regular Voodoo3.

Normally these boards can only be found in Asia. The ones you find in Europe and the U.S. are probably in hands of collectors.

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This is my first 'Made in China' Voodoo3 3000 board. It has a 'Made in China' sticker on the front of the PCB, no push-pins to mount the heatsink so this means it is glued. Normal Voodoo3 boards have some adhesive tape which is sticky but not as hard as glue. Some components on the board are different as well. The orange capacitor near the AGP connector can not be found on the regular Voodoo3 boards.

Despite the small differences the board runs like any other Voodoo3. > Read more

A Voodoo3 3500 without the TV-tuner of the normal 3dfx Voodoo3 3500, it only has TV-out.

3dfx made the card for Compaq systems to provide Compaq with a decent 3D card but without the somewhat sluggish cable of the normal 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV-card. Compaq also wanted a digital output on the card for flatscreens. After 3dfx had these connectors almost up and working Compaq bailed out and only wanted the card with the normal D-SUB (VGA) connector. Because of this very few prototypes with a DFP (Digital Flat Panel; predecessor of DVI) port can be found. > Read more

A gift from someone who found out I was collecting 3dfx cards.

This is a clean and normal four-layer Voodoo3 2000 PCI board. It has the usual black heatsink (few people have them silver) and regular 6NS EtronTech RAM. > Read more

A gift from someone.

This is a normal production board with a 355-0017-011 chip dated 19th week of 1999. > Read more

Looks and is pretty much the same as this Compaq/3dfx Voodoo3 1000. Except for the RAM chips the cards are identical. > Read more

A budget version of the Voodoo3. Due it's low clockfrequency (125MHz) it doesn't need a heatsink at all. The card runs slower than the Velocity 100 (143MHz) but runs ahead in the benchmarks. This is because the Voodoo3 1000 can access two TMU's where the Velocity can only use one. > Read more

The BIOS decal notes 'Gateway V3 1000 2.15.06' but apart from that the card is the same as an 3dfx Velocity 100. In Gateway systems this card was sold as a budget Voodoo3 rather than a Velocity. > Read more

A Voodoo3 PCI prototype with chip! The only one I have of this kind. The chip has model number 500-0016-05. It also has a marking E#12 which is unclear to me. Probably some batch number.

Someone once fiddled around with the components on the PCB. The FET near the PCI connector has been removed on a quite rude way. Components nearby 'suffered' from this as well. I noticed the PCB is not straight as well, it's bended.

All with all the board does not function. Nothing is detected when it's inserted in a PC but that's no wonder looking at the condition of the card. > Read more

A slot 1 motherboard with Intel 440BX chipset for Pentium II, Pentium III and early Celeron CPU's. One of the few motherboards in it's time to feature an on-board 3D-graphics chip. On-board you'll find a 3dfx 'Avenger' chip at 143MHz which is better known as the Voodoo 3 2000. Unfortunately I can't run benchmarks because my motherboard doesn't work. > Read more

Perhaps a RAM test board. It has 'Siemens' RAM which is not common on 3dfx cards. Notice the Avenger chip (or actually not), it's removed. It also lacks a FET.

The board has an engineering sample attached which says 'locks instantly in Quake 3'. The RAM test probably failed somehow on which someone decided to remove the Avenger chip . > Read more

This board looks like a normal production board. Though I'm told it was an engineering sample and this can be confirmed because the card has an engineering-tag attached.

The tag says 'Q3 hung after 2783 16 hours'. I'm not sure what the 2783 means but the card was probably not stable enough to run Quake 3.

The card is a Dell Voodoo3 3000. It has a late production date so it's probably used internally at Dell. > Read more

A Dell OEM prototype without TV-out and 5,5NS RAM installed. 5,5NS RAM can handle 183MHz but the chip (and thus the RAM) on this board only runs at 166MHz.

The card has no signs of being a prototype but it came along with my other Dell prototype and the seller told me it was an engineering sample. > Read more

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This card has all the bits to become a working card except for the 3dfx 'Avenger' chip itself. It was either a card that was never finished or perhaps once it was fitted with a Nepente socket. The socket can be used to insert 3dfx chips and has a lifetime of around 100 insertions. This saves time on debugging because a chip is swapped in a matter of seconds.

The card has copper interconnects to ensure good contact with the socket. It also has four holes around the chip-area in which the socket is installed. Normal 3dfx cards only have two holes. > Read more

A nice engineering sample! This is probably how the Voodoo3 PCI would like if 3dfx did not acquire STB.

The card has no Avenger chip installed and the PCB uses aluminium interconnects. I have another engineering sample which uses copper interconnects. This card would suffice using the aluminium because it would not feature a Nepenthe socket for swapping chips. Now I only wonder why the engineers at 3dfx never installed a graphics chip ... I guess they had PCB's fabricated in batches of 10 or 20 pieces each and didn't need that much of this particular batch/revision. > Read more

An early production Voodoo3. Interesting is the chip under the heatsink: it has the old 3Dfx-logo and the old Voodoo3 logo. > Read more

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The US version of 3dfx' fastest Voodoo3 card. The US version has NTSC support and a box that is written in English/American. European versions are PAL and have German, Dutch and Norwegian translations on them.

The Voodoo3 3500TV is clocked at 183MHz which is 17MHz faster than the Voodoo3 3000. However, most Voodoo3 3000 will run at 183MHz too but a few won't. Usually the 3500TV has a bigger overclock margin since it's factory equipped with higher rated RAM chips (5.5NS).

The 3500TV comes with a purple break-out pod that connects to the "DVI-like" (but isn't DVI!) connector on the card. The break-out pod then let's you connect TV-Out, TV-In and D-SUB (VGA).

Compaq also sold PC's with a Voodoo3 3500 (like this card) but didn't include the TV-In functions and the break-out pod. You can see it as a 3500 version of the regular Voodoo3 3000.

All in all the Voodoo3 3500TV was fast card in 1999. The competition was fierce however, NVIDIA was neck-on-neck with the Riva TNT2 Ultra. The Voodoo3 3500 feels happy in a Pentium II 450 / Pentium III 550 system. Faster is possible but you won't gain that much extra performance. > Read more

A 3dfx Voodoo3 in one of the iconic 3dfx retail boxes. By the time the Voodoo3 hit the shelves (and 3dfx bought STB) 3dfx moved away from third-party resellers (like Diamond and Creative) and started selling their own cards. In my opinion they did a good job in designing their retail boxes because they look great and are very recognizable.

However, from a sales point of view it was eventually a bad decision because 3dfx didn't make friends with resellers and 3dfx virtually destroyed competition within it's own market because 3dfx had a fixed price and resellers tend to stunt with prices or bundled with extra games.

The retail box shown here is the US version. There is also a European version with German, Dutch and Norwegian text and a Japanese version that came in a smaller box. > Read more

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A cut-down 3D chip for the low-end market. The Velocity is a Voodoo3 underneath but it has less RAM, it's clockfrequency is lower and it can only access one TMU (Texture Mapping Unit). The second one is known to be activated using a hack but I never tested that.

Almost all games run on this card like it was a Voodoo3, but with lower performance. One exception is Dethkarz which shows black likes and a few missing textures. > Read more

Normal, but unfortunatly broken, Voodoo3 PCI model with SGRAM. I have no idea why this card doesn't work and actually it was already broken before I even got it! > Read more

A PCI model of 3dfx' Voodoo3 2000 in it's original box. Starting with the Voodoo3, 3dfx decided to sell cards only under the 3dfx-brand. Companies like Diamond, Guillemot and A-Trend were left out so they weren't allowed to bring Voodoo3-based cards on the market anymore (which a few exceptions later on like the Garnet and PowerColor Voodoo3). I think this was a bad move but at least one good thing came out of it: the nicely designed 3dfx boxes!

3dfx also bought out STB and started uses STB PCB designs. The first 3dfx prototypes (pre STB) looked more like the Voodoo Banshee. Hence the Voodoo3 would initially be called Banshee II (or was first codenamed Banshee II). See this card for a Voodoo3 PCI engineering sample and compare the PCB layout.

The Voodoo3 was a good performer in it's day but was heavily competed by competitors. With the Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo II, 3dfx did have the performance-crown but in 1999 NVIDIA released the Riva TNT2 which turned out to be a serious competitor.

I have done several benchmarks (see here) with both a Pentium II 450 and Pentium III 1400. Generally the Voodoo3 is very happy with a Pentium II 450 since that CPU doesn't really seem to be a bottleneck. You can of course opt for a much faster CPU but most games won't benefit from that.

The Voodoo3 2000 PCI has a 6 layer PCB as seen on the picture . > Read more