Löschzwerg (@Loeschzwerg_3DC on Twitter) found an auction page on eBay for an unreleased prototype 3dfx graphics card – the Voodoo 5 6000 3700A. 3dfx Interactive, founded in 1994 and based in San Jose, California, was in the latter half of the 1990s one of the leading retailers of graphics and video cards until it exited the market eight years later. NVIDIA eventually acquired most of its assets in late 2000, and the company filed for bankruptcy in October 2002.
One of 3dfx Interactive’s most popular products is the Voodoo graphics line, an add-on card that uses hardware acceleration to produce 3D graphics and rendering. The Voodoo 5 6000 3700A prototype currently up for auction is priced at $5,500 on eBay, with close to nine days left to bid. Graphics card enthusiasts and collectors appear to be starting to bid hard, with one user previously bidding $10,000 and then withdrawing.
The seller, “gtastuntcrew302”, explained in detail why he was selling this vintage card and the steps he took to ensure that this piece would be sought after not only by graphics card collectors, but also by 3dfx interactive enthusiasts.
This card is considered to be the ultimate piece for most if not all 3DFX enthusiasts/collectors. That’s why I wanted to pass it on to someone who could really look at it and have a warm and special feeling about it. I want to give this card to someone who can take care of it for years to come and preserve the history and meaning of this card in the 3D world.
This card was personally redesigned by renowned 3dfx engineer Hank Semenec to achieve a fully stable 8X FSAA anti-aliasing capability. Unlike many other Voodoo 5 6000 prototypes, this card is a late stage of the 6K prototype project and the vast majority of bugs have been eliminated. So if you’re looking for the ultimate Voodoo 5 6000 experience, then this is the card for you.
The card comes with a “Voodoo volts” style barrel connector to Molex plug adapter, a maximum gaming resolution of 1366 x 768, and support for DirectX 6 and OpenGL 1.1. The chip is 250nm, compared to many current processors that are well below 10nm in size.
The Voodoo 5 6000 has a maximum clock speed of 166 MHz for the GPU and SDRAM memory, a single-slot board design, a TDP of 60W, and only one VGA port. The recommended power supply unit is approximately 250 W. This is one of the first consumer-oriented gaming graphics cards to advertise 128 MB of RAM on the device. the Voodoo 5 6000 must be connected to an external power supply, as the AGP slot is not powerful enough for this card. To keep the card working, “gtastuntcrew302” enlisted the help of Hank Semenec, a brilliant engineer from 3dfx Interactive, to be able to better supply it with enough power.
