3dfx Voodoo5 6000 First Aircooler Edition

Milling and assembling first parts...

22791133a.jpg


83254530b.jpg


60434220c.jpg


1435317743.jpg


7449759044.jpg


Look good, no?
 
2300 Euros to make a cooler for an incredibly outdated video card? That's some dedication. So...what's the motivation here? Seems like a ridiculous amount of money to dump into such an old card.

Also, did you do the design on the cooler? Do you have any specific qualifications for creating that? Seems awfully airflow restricted.
 
2300 Euros to make a cooler for an incredibly outdated video card? That's some dedication. So...what's the motivation here? Seems like a ridiculous amount of money to dump into such an old card.

Also, did you do the design on the cooler? Do you have any specific qualifications for creating that? Seems awfully airflow restricted.
If he has the disposable income and drive to play some older games why not? He will be playing all the games from the 90's and early 2000's with the max framerates possible. Glide was immensely better than openGL and Directx for its time, with the amount of horsepower this has, it will most def insure the best possible gameplay for some excellent old school games.
 
2300 Euros to make a cooler for an incredibly outdated video card? That's some dedication. So...what's the motivation here? Seems like a ridiculous amount of money to dump into such an old card.

Also, did you do the design on the cooler? Do you have any specific qualifications for creating that? Seems awfully airflow restricted.

Why does anyone do anything? ;) They want to. Great work, OP... that is beautiful!
 
2300 Euros to make a cooler for an incredibly outdated video card? That's some dedication. So...what's the motivation here? Seems like a ridiculous amount of money to dump into such an old card.

Also, did you do the design on the cooler? Do you have any specific qualifications for creating that? Seems awfully airflow restricted.

Dam dude - don't be a buzzkill. It's an enthusist project that he enjoys, take it for what it is. That is pretty impressive OP, making your own heatsink is awesome. Making your own heatsink for a Voodoo like that is [H].
 
I don't make the cooler but one pro do the work for me.
It's a very rare card so I want the best for it :)
 
Wow, that's impressive.

Suddenly I have the urge to build my own custom cooler. :eek:
 
3DFX is one of the main reasons I joined the Green Team (Nvidia). I was hoping that in the sadness that perhaps that team could influence Nvidia, and I think they have in some respects.

Anything that brings a calling back to those glory days gets the tip of my hat. Bravo!
 
pretty cool. I wish I would of kept some of my old video cards. I think I had some type of voodoo card maybe a 3000? I also remember having a (what I thought was a bad ass card) a geforce mx4 by I think mad dog or something. The oldest card I have is one of my geforce 6600GT's (the one that didnt catch on fire lol) I also have my 8800 Ultra, my first high end card, paid like $550 for it.
 
Great craftmanship, but I think it would look cooler without the fans. It doesn't need them anyway with that size of a heatsink.
 
2.4Kg plastic and metal! :eek:

255867IMG4717.jpg


I will put the card in reverse for sure...like my watercooled card...
 
That thing looks beautiful.

I'm more interested in the fab process.
 
I still have my dual 12mb voodoo2s lying around coupled together with my TNT2 ultra. That was the turning point of 3D gaming. I still have it in a box with my P3 coppermine and a gig of ram and SB audigy.

90s gaming was the golden era. UT '99 anyone?
 
Could you share where you bought the heatpipes?

They're pretty easy to make yourself if you have the right tools, a vacuum pump, a good scale, some tubing, and copper pneumatic crimper basically (can hammer to seal ends if needed) and a solder bath to dip it in for extra closing at the end. If you're really interested in purchasing some premade ones though there are tons of places that you can get them from, and if you have a fairly large research university nearby that has a Mechanical Engineering department that does research in thermal stuff, one of the professors there probably has a separate business making one also, or will be able to create some pretty cheaply.
 
They're pretty easy to make yourself if you have the right tools, a vacuum pump, a good scale, some tubing, and copper pneumatic crimper basically (can hammer to seal ends if needed) and a solder bath to dip it in for extra closing at the end. If you're really interested in purchasing some premade ones though there are tons of places that you can get them from

Very interesting. Thanks. The last time I tried to find them was a few years ago and had extreme difficulty in finding anywhere that would sell in low quantities. I'll have to give Google another go.

Also, the idea of making them intrigues me. What would you use for wick? Again - I'll start Googling for some instructions. If you have any nice reference sites you've used before, I'd love to have the links.

Thanks!

- Kevin
 
If he has the disposable income and drive to play some older games why not? He will be playing all the games from the 90's and early 2000's with the max framerates possible. Glide was immensely better than openGL and Directx for its time, with the amount of horsepower this has, it will most def insure the best possible gameplay for some excellent old school games.

Can't newer video cards play those old games as well?
 
Very nice work!!! Looks as if it could dissipate some major heat...Again very nice!
 
Overkill. That's [H]. :cool:

One concern though. That thing looks awful heavy. Is that card going to be supported in some way and/or the motherboard in a horizontal position? I would hate to see that legendary card be destroyed because of too much weight snapping a connector.
 
It isn't like an old video card has some sort of antique collector's value, and if it did, then keeping it original would be a priority. This project is a waste of time. I understand doing crazy stuff that makes little sense but this one baffles even the looniest of people..
 
It isn't like an old video card has some sort of antique collector's value, and if it did, then keeping it original would be a priority. This project is a waste of time. I understand doing crazy stuff that makes little sense but this one baffles even the looniest of people..

Man you are a buzz kill! Half the shit we do around here doesn't make sense look at genmay...enjoy
 
Also, the idea of making them intrigues me. What would you use for wick? Again - I'll start Googling for some instructions. If you have any nice reference sites you've used before, I'd love to have the links.

Thanks!

- Kevin

The honest thing, while you see the wick in most things, the interior surface roughness of the pipes works just fine for wicks and the capillary structures, you can also buy different types of piping and what not that has grooves and different surface finishes and what not also. When you see the actual wick structure though, most are generally just having the wick of the natural surface that's inside the tubing, Looking at buying individual or in small quantities may be tough, but I'll see what I can dig up or some old professor's companies, but they are really pretty simple devices and cheap to make, it's like a 10 or 20 cent piece depending on how much copper you are using honestly. It's also generally nothing more than the normal tubing you can get from anywhere also, just depends on how you want the tubing walls, but you can honestly just use the stuff used for like refrigerator water lines if the ID is small enough, but their walls are a little thin, and that's where all the research got started with and is used a ton still (or general spools of small tubing that comes in spools).

I'll have to find some sites, but I'd probably be better off sending you to some university papers. I did research at the university of missouri for 4.5 years of undergrad and graduate work, and one of my colleagues labs all the did was make heat pipes of varying sorts (loop heat pipes, oscillating heat pipes, different orientations, etc) and put out a ton of papers, and all the Thesis/ dissertations are freely available online. This should link to some of their thesis online and If you go here you can goto more in the departments or search/browse Mechanical and Aerospace engineering .

It's a relatively simple thing as I've said, and while the math and everything that goes into it is pretty complicated, the actual process pretty much consists of just having the pipe the length you want, evacuating the tubing to the pressure you want (these you can find from peoples experiments or know the operating temperatures you want, but there's some pretty optimal values out there), and then the amount of water you want to charge the system with (which tends to be like 7-10 grams for most I believe, but also Dependant on lengths and operating conditions and what not, but calculate or just find what people normally use).
 
Last edited:
Back
Top