Voodoo 5 6000

The Voodoo 5 6000 was an unreleased graphics card of the Voodoo 5 series that was the last and most powerful model ever designed by 3dfx. Approximately 1000+ test cards were produced. Later a former engineer of 3dfx developed a fix for the issues called the PCI-rework which allowed the card to be fully stable even under high load.

Rather than increasing the clock rate, the Voodoo 5 6000 adhered to 3dfx's philosophy of scalability by incorporating four VSA-100 GPUs, each running at the same 166 MHz used on less powerful Voodoo 5 cards. 128 MB of SDRAM was included on-board (consisting of sixteen 8 MB RAM chips), which was considerably more than any other video card available at the time. It was standard SDRAM running at a 166 MHz clock rate, although a handful of test cards were said to have included better silicon capable of a 183 MHz clip. Due to the current draw more than the AGP connector could supply, a special power supply called Voodoo Volts was intended to have been included with it. This would have been an external device that would connect to an AC outlet. Most of the prototype cards included an internal Molex power connector as a backup, which prefigured the solution that would later be used by advanced NVIDIA and ATI cards.

Because of its VSA-100 architecture, the Voodoo 5 6000 lacked hardware T&L support. Nonetheless, later tests proved that the Voodoo 5 6000 outperformed not only the GeForce 2 GTS and ATI Radeon 7200, but also the faster GeForce 2 Ultra and Radeon 7500. It had been rumoured that Nvidia had released the GeForce 2 Ultra to pre-empt and beat the Voodoo 5 6000 to the performance crown. In some cases the 6000 was shown to compete well with the GeForce 3, trading performance places with the card on various tests. [Jasper. [http://www.sudhian.com/index.php?/articles/show/3dfx_voodoo_5_6000_review/ 3dfx Voodoo 5 6000 Review] , Sudhian, July 26, 2006.] However, the production cost of the card, particularly the 4 chip setup and 128 MB of SDRAM, would have likely hampered its competitiveness. It was projected to have a $600 price tag, outpacing the GeForce 2 Ultra and GeForce 3. The precarious financial situation of 3dfx was another factor contributing to the 6000's demise.

There were five revisions of the Voodoo 5 6000, and are mentioned below (the numbers after the model state the build week: 10 for week 10, 00 for year 2000).

Intel Revision 1 (model 1000-1900)

This was an early alpha of the card primarily used for photos and testing purposes. These cards generally had a short life expectancy, and were largely incompatible with various motherboards at the time. They also typically could not achieve speeds above 143MHz without suffering from VSA-100 death. This revision used an Intel PCI bridge chipset (which can be seen towards the lower front of the card in the above photograph). This card used a proprietary external 3dfx power supply, with 128 MB of 5.4ns SDRAM. Initial models used had the chips mounted in the arrangement seen in the photograph, but this required a PCB with eight circuitry layers (most GeForce 2 cards were four-layer, while the Voodoo 5 5500 was six-layer) and would have been unreasonably expensive. As a result, all of the following revisions had the four chips mounted on the same row, which would almost certainly have carried forward to the final card.

HiNT Revision 2 (model 2000-2900)

This version had dropped the Intel PCI bridge chip in favor of a HiNT bridge chip. These cards were able to be powered by either the internal system PSU or by a proprietary 3dfx external power supply, a feature seen in all subsequent prototype revisions. The clock speed varied from card to card, generally either 166 or 183MHz. The VSA-100 chips used still did not have a long life expectancy, and may have had problems running in FSAA. This revision had 128 MB of 5.0ns SDRAM.

HiNT Revision 3 (model 3000-3500)

Cards from this revision varied in stability from dead to fully functional. A lot of problems had been fixed in this revision, but it still had VSA-100 thermal death problems above 183 MHz (the card's intended launch speed). These cards also either had 166 or 183 MHz VSA-100 GPUs.

HiNT Revision 4 (3600-3700)

The second-to-last-model of the Voodoo 5 6000 ever made. 3dfx had seemed to finally decide on 166 MHz (due to issues with the V5-6000 running properly at 183 due to a design flaw in the PCB). Most of the problems seen in earlier revisions were fixed, although there may have been glitches while in FSAA mode on some cards. As mentioned above most of the known cards are rev. A from week 37, 2000, these are the least expensive cards although they usually go up to about 1000$ (about 750 euros or about 500 GBP) when they are sold.

HiNT Revision 5 (model 3900): Little is known about this series. Except that this is the final revision of the voodoo5 6000 this unit was meant to be the retail unit but shortly after the run of 10 were produced the voodoo5 6000 project was scratched. It was supposedly the last revision of the Voodoo 5 6000 ever made. Estimated number made is pegged at 10 and of those only two remain. http://www.thedodgegarage.com/3dfx/index.htm this link contains pictures of all versions including all voodoo volts and a pic of 1 of 2 3900 rev a card week 42 2000

References

External links

* [http://www.x86-secret.com/articles/divers/v5-6000/v56kgb-1.htm Retro-test: Voodoo 5 6000]
* [http://www.firingsquad.com/features/2000comdexpart3/page6.asp FiringSquad's Comdex '00 Report]
* [http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=412 A Fallen Titan's Final Glory, Part I: Setting the Stage]
* [http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=413 A Fallen Titan's Final Glory, Part II: The Voodoo5 6000 Reviewed]
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20050111142330/www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=817 Eurogamer.net: 3dfx Voodoo 5 6000 (Archive.org)]