erek
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3dfx collection
- Thread starter erek
- Start date
Let's see, based on eBay sales prices (not huge deviations in V4/V5).
V5-5500 AGP, ~$200
V4-4500 AGP, ~$250
V3-3000 AGP, ~$100 (wtf!)
V3-2000 PCI, ~$100 (wtf!)
V2-1000 PCI, ~$75
$725 total? So yea, about triple for the boxes.
Was shocked at the Voodoo3 prices.
Yeah, I grab up any 3dfx cards I see for super cheap. Pretty sure I will never need to buy anymore ever again.. but there is always the "investment" angle as well. Buy cheap, save for a while, and then cash in when the prices go even higher.
MavericK
Zero Cool
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Wow, really? I had (have?) one of those somewhere...
MyNameIsAlex
Limp Gawd
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I knew a guy with like a 100,000 SQ ft warehouse that was stuffed with tens of thousands of 80s and 90s parts, 70s computer parts, early parts. I distinctly remember some huge, 200LB (look like) hard drives.
I wonder how much of that crap is worth crazy money like some of this shit
I wonder how much of that crap is worth crazy money like some of this shit
Market will go south once those of a certain age move onto other things. Question is like anything else when is the peak?
MyNameIsAlex
Limp Gawd
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The ghosts of the people that bought Tulips in the 1600s are looking at the people buying these cards now thinking 'what are you stupid? a tulip, you plant that shit, it grows. dumbass'
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Ehhh... I've been watching the market for a couple years now. Even if the prices dropped by 50%, I would still be able to make money on the cards I bought.
I only buy them when I get them really, really cheap.
Same thing goes for other types of retro/vintage hardware. The prices keep going up and up and up.
Most of the 3dfx cards I have I will probably keep anyway. But there are a ton of other pieces of hardware that I will be thinning out very soon.
I get a lot of stuff in large lots and have way too much to ever begin to use.
And as far as people moving on.. sure, there are some, but there are also those younger people that are getting into retro gaming at what seems like a quicker pace then those moving on to other things.
MyNameIsAlex
Limp Gawd
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You guys will call me crazy but with the current rate of pharmaceutical development we should be able to make SOMA pretty soon. Wellubtron+Xanax is the closet possible thing humanity could come up, but it is not soma as described in brave new world.
You play the game, you collect the Jingo, bam, the noise triggers, dopamine. You associate the dopamine with the jingo getting found and now you want to find more jingos.
If soma is made, which it will be, if it's sold, which it will be (Look at the crazy insane shit they sell now) it's going to render all the moot point as my dopamine receptors are set to 'Orgasm while eating BBQ wings' nonstop 24/7
People are going to be walking and running and playing in the trees and the fields, I swear it.
One day we'll catch all those little Jingos running around in our brain...
Been watching the 60's-70'smuscle market for decades, peak has been hit and is rolling off now. Sure there are younger people that like musclecars but the numbers who can afford them are relativity small as are those interested.
A lot of young people just have no interest in cars or even driving.
MyNameIsAlex
Limp Gawd
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Be aware of multiple variables.
Kids still want to drive fancy cars so girls will let them feel them up.
A lot of the demand for muscle cars is From guys who are reaching an age where they are probably wanting to sell those cars and leave something more liquid for the estate at this point, and some will die with the cars. to the point where a bunch of lawyers are trying to sell the cars as cheap as possible as fast as possible without caring what is rare, underpriced, if the car has those fancy OG doormats that make it worth $5000 more, whatever. The obligation to the estate is typically to get MOST of the money ASAP, when they do like office buildings a lot of furniture phones sellable shit getsbulldozed because no one has time to deal with that shit- theryre lawyers, you want them to bill you $500 an hour to negotiate selling $500 in chairs to steve and then spend 5 hours watching steve load them?
You get it.
w1retap
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The extremely old stuff (hard drives that you need to store on a pallet), are really only sellable to museums or an extremely rare targeted buyer who collects it. They're too big for the average home user, they require too much maintenance, too much power, and having a complete working system to use it in would take up the space of an average size bedroom. Not worth it to 99.9% of potential buyers.
As far as 70's onward computing (desktop size), some of that is worth a lot and people will pay it. Anything that can be put into a closet and powered off your standard wall outlet is potentially collectible. I've found it is only worth a lot if -- (a) the item brings nostalgia to the buyer, (b) it fully functions, (c) it has some sort of significance, (d) it was rare/oddball and now considered "cool" because of it. There are a few other things that play into multiplying the value, like if it has the original box, manuals, cables, still sealed, shown in pictures/video fully working, etc.
As 70's-00's hardware ages, the majority of people don't know how to fix it to keep it working, so a lot will get scrapped, increasing the rarity and value. But, it might only be valuable until people born in that era live out their life. Maybe the year 2070 or so? Beyond that, good luck having fully working examples of the hardware and someone who knows how to use it with all the software/hardware and peripherals. I have a hard enough time with my retro machines from the 80's and 90's keeping them running. BGA mounting needs to be reballed or reflowed, capacitors need replaced, traces need repaired due to battery acid leaks, etc. Then of course you have chips that just flat out die and you can't find a replacement for..
The biggest problem with 90's and newer hardware I find is with RoHS solder. That shit cracks or gets tin whiskers, especially in BGA mounts or newer chip surface mounting techniques and it always needs attention. The more contacts it has in a dense area, the harder it gets to repair and requires laser alignment. (i.e. newer phone CPU's, VRAM, etc)
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fightingfi
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Ive got a 3dfx 5 5500 for sale not sure how much to ask highest bidder wins !!!!!!!!!!
AGP or PCI?
erek
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SamuelL421
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Is Oscar on [H] or OCN? Some of his gear reminds me of other pics I had seen on some forum.
If he can build this it makes me wonder about the inverse, a pcix to agp adapter? Or, better yet, a PCIe v1 x2 or x4 to agp adapter.
erek
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I know there are AGP to PCI adapters. I bought one a while ago.
The only downside is that they are not good for mounting in a case because they are riser cards. They will work ok IF you have a low profile card or have a case that is wide enough to fit the extra height from the riser.
As for the other adapters... well, it would be possible IF there are bridge chips available to do the conversion.
Way back in the day, there was a PCI-E to AGP adapter that was supposed to be released but either it was only released in very small quantities or it was never released. And it only worked with certain cards.
https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/a-bridge-not-too-far-agp-to-pci-express-2736592
AMD and Nvidia both had PCI-E to AGP bridge chips for their specific cards that were ported back to AGP.
The PCI-E <-> PCI boards are super simple to do because they all use the same exact bridge chip that can do the conversion either way.
SamuelL421
Gawd
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I remember seeing that article long ago! I would pay stupid money for one of those Albatron PCIe to AGP converters.
Has anyone ever seen one of these in the wild before?
aShrubbery!
[H]ard|Gawd
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Hmmm... I still have a V5 5500 AGP, V5500 PCI (with box), a couple of V3 3000 AGP, a V2 and a V1.
Waiting to appreciate!
I wasn't aware it was that easy to just slap and AGP to PCI adapter and use it without serious performance issues.
Waiting to appreciate!
I wasn't aware it was that easy to just slap and AGP to PCI adapter and use it without serious performance issues.
fightingfi
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Mines agp