An engineer associated with Russian hardware site ModLabs has successfully reverse engineered and produced a modernized version of what was supposed to be 3dfx Interactive’s most powerful graphics card ever, 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 built on a 250 nm process and featured four VSA-100 GPUs, an AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) 4x bus interface, 128 MB of memory, a core/memory clock of 166 MHz, and a memory bandwidth of 10.66 GB/s.
ModLabs’ version of the Voodoo 5 6000 echoes the majority of these specifications but improves upon 3dfx’s original design with a custom, black PCB; a PCI interface; and an internal 4-pin Molex connector for power delivery. The latter is a significant upgrade, as the original Voodoo 5 6000 required an external power brick.
Specifications
- Board name: TBA
- 3dfx / 3dfx product-line equivalent: Yes / Yes, Voodoo 5 6000 Prototype
- Graphics Architecture / GPU Arhitecture: Napalm
- Chip / GPU Codename: VSA-100
- Chips / GPU Count: 4
- Supported Interfaces: PCI / AGP 8x (?) / PCI-Express (?)
- GPU / GPU Clock: 166 MHz
- Volume, type and maximum frequency of video memory / Mem. amount, type, mem. clock by mem. spec: 128 MB / MB, SDRAM, 200 MHz / MHz (5 ns / ns)
- SDRAM / Memory clock: 166 MHz / MHz
- Supported AA Modes: Yes, RGSSAA, modes 2x, 4x, 8x
- Compatible with existing 3dfx drivers / 3rd party for 3dfx / Existing original 3dfx drivers / 3-rd party drivers compatibility: Yes / Yes
- Support / Support for Windows 9x / 2000 / XP +: Yes / Yes
- Pass-Thru / Pass-Thru mode support: Yes / Yes
You can check out zx-c64’s thread on ModLabs for more information about this “untitled project,” which includes a FAQ confirming that the updated Voodoo 5 6000 does not suffer from any of the full-screen anti-aliasing issues that the original prototypes did. One user warns that the GPU may exhibit color distortion and artifacts, translucent stripes, and miscellaneous compatibility and speed issues under certain circumstances, however.
