3dfx’s Legendary Voodoo 5 6000 Graphics Card Is Back and Better than Ever

images : ModLabs

An engineer connected to the Russian website ModLabs has managed to reverse engineer and release an improved version of 3dfx Interactive’s most powerful graphics card, the Voodoo 5 6000. The SKU, which never officially saw the light of day due to 3dfx’s bankruptcy and acquisition by NVIDIA in late 2000, was manufactured using the 250nm process and included four VSA-100 GPUs, a 4x accelerated AGP (Graphics Port) bus interface, 128MB of memory, a 166MHz core/memory clock and 10.66GB/s of memory bandwidth.

The ModLab version of the Voodoo 5 6000 retains most of these specifications, but enhances the original 3dfx design with its own black PCB, PCI interface and internal 4-pin Molex connector for power. The latter is a significant upgrade, as the original Voodoo 5 6000 required an external power block.

Image: 3dfx Interactive

Technical data

Name of the Commission : TBA
3dfx / product line equivalent to 3dfx : Yes / Yes, Voodoo 5 6000 Prototype
Graphics architecture / GPU architecture : Napalm
The code name of the chip/GPU: VSA-100
Chips/GPU counting : 4
Supported interfaces : PCI / AGP 8x (?) / PCI-Express (?)
GPU / GPU clock : 166 MHz
Volume, type and maximum frequency of video memory / memory capacity, type, mem. clock according to mem specification: 128 MB / Mb, SDRAM, 200 MHz / MHz (5 ns / ns)
SDRAM / Memory clock : 166 MHz / MHz
Supported AA modes : Yes, RGSSAA, 2x, 4x, 8x modes.
Compatibility with existing 3dfx drivers / Compatibility with third party 3dfx drivers / Compatibility with existing original 3dfx drivers / Compatibility with third party drivers : Yes / Yes
Support for Windows 9x / 2000 / XP + : Yes / Yes
Pass-Thru Mode / Pass-Thru Mode support : Yes / Yes

For more information on this unnamed project, see the zx-c64 thread on ModLabs, which includes an FAQ confirming that the updated Voodoo 5 6000 has none of the full-screen antialiasing issues that the original prototypes had. However, one user warns that under certain circumstances, color distortions and artifacts, semi-transparent streaks, and various compatibility and speed issues can occur on the GPU.