3dfx Voodoo3 2000

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 :).

Specifications

Chipset
PCB date
9942
Chip date
0000
RAM
16MB SDR 7NS (Samsung)
Interface
Condition
US Retail
TV functions?
No
Engineering sample?
No
RAMDAC
Integrated
Board revision
A

Drivers

Driver nameRelease dateOperating systemDownloadInfo
3dfx Voodoo3 V1.07.002000-11-22

DOS Win95 Win98 Win98SE WinME voodoo3-10700.zip...Link
3dfx Voodoo3 V1.03.002000-11-22

Win2000 WinXP voodoo3-win2k-1030...Link
3dfx Voodoo3 V1.07.00b2001-01-31

DOS Win95 Win98 Win98SE WinME voodoo3-10700b.zip...Link

Benchmarks

A similar card has been benchmarked! Click here to see this card and the benchmarks.
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