Anybody can personal among the finest graphics playing cards, however not everybody can get their fingers on the long-lasting 3dfx Voodoo 5 6000 graphics card. Nonetheless, when you have cash simply sitting within the financial institution, the chance has come; nonetheless, the unreleased gem will not come low-cost. The cardboard is at present at $5,500 on an eBay itemizing, however has a number of extra days of bidding earlier than the ultimate value turns into identified.
The Voodoo 5 6000 is a helpful artifact as a result of it was the final graphics card that 3dfx made however by no means arrived in the marketplace. It is the equal of EVGA’s unreleased GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card that ultimately went to a collector for a whopping $12,400, besides the Voodoo 5 6000 has extra historical past, and it will be fascinating to see what the best bidder is prepared to supply.
As noticed by Twitter person Löschzwerg (opens in new tab), a graphics card fanatic and collector put up a Voodoo 5 6000 prototype for public sale on eBay (opens in new tab). That is the true deal, not like the Voodoo 5 6000 replicate we noticed a few years again. The present bid is already at $5,500 with 9 days left on the public sale, so the coveted graphics card will seemingly find yourself promoting for a small fortune. There was a earlier bid of $10,000, however the bidder withdrew it.
The Voodoo5 6000 revision 3700A prototype with the complete PCI rework. In keeping with the eBay itemizing, 3dfx engineer Jindrich (Hank) Semenec was the one who personally reworked the graphics card to function stably at FSAA 8x mode. The vendor has reportedly examined the graphics card, and it is “rock strong at 8X.” He additionally claims that this prototype hails from the later levels of the 6K prototype mission, and consequently, most bugs have been solved.
The graphics card leveraged 4 VSA-100 processors at 166 MHz, every sporting 32MB 166 MHz SDRAM. As well as, the Voodoo5 6000 was the primary shopper gaming graphics card to boast 128MB of onboard reminiscence. Sadly, the ability necessities had been so demanding that the AGP slot couldn’t adequately feed the Voodoo5 6000. Consequently, the retail samples relied on an exterior energy provide connecting to an AC outlet. Nonetheless, some Voodoo5 6000 prototypes, such because the one from the eBay public sale, use a Molex adapter, and others have the Molex connector soldered to the PCB.
The Voodoo5 6000 was a marvel of a graphics card throughout its time, however the excessive manufacturing price derailed its launch. As well as, the graphics card used a multi-chip (4 VSA-100 chips) design the place competing GeForce and Radeon fashions caught to a single chip. Moreover, the 128MB VRAM and exterior energy brick did not assist the Voodoo5 6000’s trigger. Lengthy story brief, 3dfx ultimately went bankrupt in 2002, and all that’s left are these valuable, unreleased Voodoo relics of the previous.
