Back from the Dead: 3dfx's Unreleased Voodoo5 6000 Quad-GPU Card

erek

erek

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"This review looks at the unreleased 3dfx Voodoo 5 6000 video card -- except it was hand-made by an enthusiast who specializes in retro hardware resurrections. It's a quad-GPU monster that competed with the likes of NVIDIA back in the day. This piece looks at the history of 3dfx, spanning the late 90s to early 2000s, and tells the story of the company's rapid, fiery rise and collapse. Modder Anthony ZXC-64 hand-built these cards using REAL 3dfx GPU silicon with a custom-designed PCB with hand-placed components. The review looks at the GeForce 2 GTS, the Intel i740, and the Voodoo5 6000, which we can use in single-GPU mode to simulate older 3dfx cards. It is a masterful work of art that this technology was able to be salvaged from scrap and restored to a physical, working product. That modders like ZXC-64 can combine hardware, software hacks, and find and patch-up drivers to bring passion projects to life is what makes computer hardware such an amazing hobby. Join us for the ride as we walk through the history of 3dfx and benchmarks with real 3dfx GPUs."

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I am so glad GN beat LTT to the punch on doing the 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 justice. the content is better than I thought with focus on historical significance

GN put a lot of work into making this happen
 
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I remember having a Voodoo 3 3000 in the day coupled with a Pentium 3 667 @ 750 MHz. It did 'ok' in Quake III timedemo and was a decent enough card that it got me right into 3D gaming. Eventually I replaced that card with an Nvidia GeForce 2 GTS 32MB, and running Quake III timedemo the GeForce 2 GTS blew the Voodoo 3 out of the water in terms of outright FPS.

Watching the above video, and thinking of the performance parity between my Voodoo 3 and my Geforce 2 GTS, the results obtained from the Voodoo 5 6000 are actually mind blowing.
 
VooDoo, VooDoo, gimme somadat VooDoo, oh yea !

This is so cool, too bad they don't have the resources to make it a practical, shipping product :(

But certain companies (yea, you know who) would NEVA allow that to happen (not unless they could make $$ off it themselves), so keep on dreamin :)
 
Really great watch. I lived through the meteoric rise and fall of 3Dfx. At the time I didn't really think anything of it, other than it would've be nice to have better competition. When cards like the 3000 series and 4000 series came out, I asked: "why would anyone buy this?" All of my friends and I at the time made fun of the Banshee.

They had gone from making super relevant cards in the VooDoo 1/2/3, to making cards that were over costed, under-delivered, and used an outdated API, while refusing to compete using DirectX. As was noted in the video even by the founders themselves, the purchase of STB sealed their fate. Even at the time I thought it was dumb and I was just a stupid HS kid.

Still, 3Dfx is still remembered by me fondly for the Voodoo2. It was that card (a Creative Labs 8MB to be exact) that was responsible for getting me into PC gaming. Paired with my 4MB Matrox Mystique I had a fairly quick machine for a kid in HS. Because I wasn't really working until later and that money would be sporatic, it wouldn't be until my senior year where I had the money to upgrade to an nVidia Geforce 2 MX card. At that time I really rooted for the new kid on the block, nVidia and was glad for the consistent performance that 3Dfx failed to bring over 2-3 mini generations (now with how long product cycles are, I realize those product cycles from 3Dfx/nVidia/ATi/et al were short!).

Sadly without 3Dfx, the whole market has kind of suffered. Radeon was a tier 2 player for most of their existence with a few notable exceptions (unless you wanted an AIW card or a feature set outside of just strictly performance). And nVidia as the current top dog has basically been allowed to become corrupt. In 2023, AMD is just starting to get their purchase to start cranking out relevant video cards. It's been a long 7+ years without any real competition.
 
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UnknownSouljer said:
Really great watch. I lived through the meteoric rise and fall of 3Dfx. At the time I didn't really think anything of it, other than it would've be nice to have better competition. When cards like the 3000 series and 4000 series came out, I asked: "why would anyone buy this?" All of my friends and I at the time made fun of the Banshee.

They had gone from making super relevant cards in the VooDoo 1/2/3, to making cards that were over costed, under-delivered, and used an outdated API, while refusing to compete using DirectX. As was noted in the video even by the founders themselves, the purchase of STB sealed their fate. Even at the time I thought it was dumb and I was just a stupid HS kid.

Still, 3Dfx is still remembered by me fondly for the Voodoo2. It was that card (a Creative Labs 8MB to be exact) that was responsible for getting me into PC gaming. Paired with my 4MB Matrox Mystique I had a fairly quick machine for a kid in HS. Because I wasn't really working until later and that money would be sporatic, it wouldn't be until my senior year where I had the money to upgrade to an nVidia Geforce 2 MX card. At that time I really rooted for the new kid on the block, nVidia and was glad for the consistent performance that 3Dfx failed to bring over 2-3 mini generations (now with how long product cycles are, I realize those product cycles from 3Dfx/nVidia/ATi/et al were short!).

Sadly without 3Dfx, the whole market has kind of suffered. Radeon was a tier 2 player for most of their existence with a few notable exceptions (unless you wanted an AIW card or a feature set outside of just strictly performance). And nVidia as the current top dog has basically been allowed to become corrupt. In 2023, AMD is just starting to get their purchase to start cranking out relevant video cards. It's been a long 7+ years without any real competition.
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Miss the days Diamond Monster 3D > Creative Labs 12MB > 2X Creative Labs 12MB > Obsidian 24MB < Wish I would have kept that card BTW :(
 
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erek said:
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That viper ii card really sucked lol, still mad I bought into the T&L hype over the TNT2, oh well. Replaced it with a Gerforce 3 when it came out.

UnknownSouljer said:
Really great watch. I lived through the meteoric rise and fall of 3Dfx. At the time I didn't really think anything of it, other than it would've be nice to have better competition. When cards like the 3000 series and 4000 series came out, I asked: "why would anyone buy this?" All of my friends and I at the time made fun of the Banshee.

They had gone from making super relevant cards in the VooDoo 1/2/3, to making cards that were over costed, under-delivered, and used an outdated API, while refusing to compete using DirectX. As was noted in the video even by the founders themselves, the purchase of STB sealed their fate. Even at the time I thought it was dumb and I was just a stupid HS kid.

Still, 3Dfx is still remembered by me fondly for the Voodoo2. It was that card (a Creative Labs 8MB to be exact) that was responsible for getting me into PC gaming. Paired with my 4MB Matrox Mystique I had a fairly quick machine for a kid in HS. Because I wasn't really working until later and that money would be sporatic, it wouldn't be until my senior year where I had the money to upgrade to an nVidia Geforce 2 MX card. At that time I really rooted for the new kid on the block, nVidia and was glad for the consistent performance that 3Dfx failed to bring over 2-3 mini generations (now with how long product cycles are, I realize those product cycles from 3Dfx/nVidia/ATi/et al were short!).

Sadly without 3Dfx, the whole market has kind of suffered. Radeon was a tier 2 player for most of their existence with a few notable exceptions (unless you wanted an AIW card or a feature set outside of just strictly performance). And nVidia as the current top dog has basically been allowed to become corrupt. In 2023, AMD is just starting to get their purchase to start cranking out relevant video cards. It's been a long 7+ years without any real competition.
Click to expand...
One of my neighbours got a banshee and honestly it was great, never had issues and had really good FPS so not sure what the reviewers were smoking when they said it was bad lol. We were like damn this kicks ass, granted we were pretty young at the time but still. (we had s3 nitro and rage 3d at the time)
 
D-EJ915 said:
That viper ii card really sucked lol, still mad I bought into the T&L hype over the TNT2, oh well. Replaced it with a Gerforce 3 when it came out.


One of my neighbours got a banshee and honestly it was great, never had issues and had really good FPS so not sure what the reviewers were smoking when they said it was bad lol. We were like damn this kicks ass, granted we were pretty young at the time but still. (we had s3 nitro and rage 3d at the time)
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i had a 3D Blaster banshee 16MB as well.. as a 13 year old i was in awe playing Independence day, Total Annihilation and them not being a slideshow. still have it too.
 
Great video and retrospective. I was pretty surprised when he mentioned Kramden in the video, which I know well. I had no idea GN was based out of Cary, NC.
 
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M76 said:
This made me consider putting my diamond monster 3D into a PC and install windows 98 on it. I wonder if win98 runs on a conroe as that is the oldest HW I have.
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Absolutely it will run on a Conroe platform. It isn't officially supported, so there are issues & challenges to getting things working. I have it running on a Z97 motherboard with a Haswell Pentium G3258 Anniversary Edition, with an EVGA GeForce 7900 GT (PCIe) & a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card.
 
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