Voodoo 5 6000[edit]
The Voodoo 5 6000 is the unreleased high-end product in the Voodoo5 line. It was to use four 166 MHz VSA-100 processors, each with its own 32 MB of 166 MHz SDRAM, resulting in the first 128 MB graphics card (consisting of sixteen 8 MB chips). Approximately 1000+ test cards were produced. Because the card used more power than the AGP specification allowed for, a special power supply called
Voodoo Volts had to be included with it. This would have been an external device that would connect to an
AC outlet. Most of the prototype cards utilized a standard internal power supply molex power connector.
With regards to performance, little was known until enthusiasts were able to get pre-release hardware and run tests on it. The results showed that the Voodoo 5 6000 outperformed the GeForce 2 Ultra and Radeon 7500, which were the fastest iterations of the GeForce 2 and Radeon R100 lines, respectively. (It was rumored that GeForce 2 Ultra was intended to prevent 3dfx taking the lead with their Voodoo 5 6000.) In some cases, the 6000 was shown to compete well with the next-generation
GeForce 3.
[7]
Unfortunately, the production cost of the Voodoo5 6000 would have likely hampered its competitiveness from a profitability standpoint. Compared to the single-chip GeForce and Radeon cards, a Voodoo5 6000 is burdened with much redundancy and a complicated board. It was projected to have a US$600 price tag, considerably higher than competing parts. Despite its high price point, the Voodoo5 6000 would not have offered next-generation
DirectX 8.0 vertex and pixel shaders that would be found in the GeForce 3 (which was intended by
Nvidia to replace the short-lived GeForce 2 Ultra as its flagship product) and
Radeon 8500, nor even DirectX 7 features such as hardware transform and lighting acceleration for vertices. The precarious financial situation of 3dfx was another factor contributing to the 6000's demise.
There were five revisions of the Voodoo 5 6000: (the numbers after the model state the build week: 10 for week 10, 00 for year 2000).
Intel Revision 1 (model 1000-1900)[edit]
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 143 MHz without suffering from VSA-100 "death". This revision used an Intel PCI bridge chip, was equipped with 128 MB of 5.4ns SDRAM and used a proprietary external 3dfx power supply. Initial models 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. All of the later revisions had the four chips mounted in a row.
HiNT Revision 2 (model 2000-2900)[edit]
This version 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 183 MHz. The VSA-100 chips used still did not have a long life expectancy, and may have had problems running anti-aliasing. This revision had 128 MB of 5.0ns SDRAM.
HiNT Revision 3 (model 3000-3500)[edit]
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. These cards either had 166 or 183 MHz VSA-100 GPUs.
HiNT Revision 4 (3600-3700)[edit]
3dfx decided on 166 MHz due to issues with the 6000 running properly at 183 MHz due to a design flaw with the PCB. Most of the problems seen in earlier revisions were fixed, although there may have been glitches while in anti-aliasing mode on some cards. Most of the known cards are revision A from week 37, 2000.
HiNT Revision 5 (model 3900)[edit]
Little is known about this series except that this is the final revision. It was meant to be the retail unit, but shortly after the run of 10 were produced, the 6000 series was cancelled.