Löschzwerg (@Loeschzwerg_3DC on Twitter) found a listing for an unreleased 3dfx graphics card prototype — the Voodoo 5 6000 3700A— up for auction on eBay. 3dfx Interactive, founded in 1994 and headquartered in San Jose, California, was one of the major retailers of graphics cards and video cards during the last half of the 1990s until it departed from the market eight years later. NVIDIA eventually bought most assets towards the end of 2000 and filed for bankruptcy in October 2002.
Incredibly rare 3dfx Interactive Voodoo 5 6000 graphics card prototype up for auction on eBay, with a current bid of $5,500
One of the more popular products from 3dfx Interactive was the Voodoo Graphics line, an add-in card that utilized hardware acceleration to produce 3D graphics and rendering. The current Voodoo 5 6000 3700A prototype that is up for auction is currently sitting at $5,500 on eBay, with close to nine days remaining on the bidding. Graphics card enthusiasts and collectors look to be starting the bidding strong, with one user having previously bid $10,000 before withdrawing.
Crazy stuff... already 10k USD and still 9 days left for a original 3dfx Voodoo 5 6000 engineering sample.#3dfx #voodoo #ebay #vsa100 pic.twitter.com/6lGscZLjWZ
— Löschzwerg (@Loeschzwerg_3DC) February 3, 2023
The selling party, "gtastuntcrew302," explains in detail why he is selling the vintage card and also the steps he has gone through to ensure that this piece will be well sought after for not only graphics card collectors but 3dfx Interactive enthusiasts as well:
I have come to the conclusion that this card just isn't the holy grail for me and that I have other pieces in my vintage hardware collection that simply mean more to me and will always mean more to me. This card has been considered to be the ultimate holy grail piece for most if not all 3DFX enthusiasts/collectors. Which is why I'm wanting to pass it on to someone that will truly view it as such and get that warm and special feeling for it. I wish to pass the card to someone that will care for it for years to come and preserve the history and significance this card holds in the world of 3D.
This card was personally reworked by the well known 3DFX engineer Hank Semenec for fully stable 8X FSAA (I have personally verified that this card is rock solid at 8X) Unlike a lot of other Voodoo 5 6000 prototypes, this one is from the later stages of the 6K prototype project where the vast majority of bugs have been ironed out. So if you're looking for the ultimate Voodoo 5 6000 experience with an ACTUAL REAL PROTOTYPE, this is the card for you!
This card will come with a "Voodoo volts" style barrel connector to molex plug adapter.
I would also like to make it perfectly clear that I bought this card via a good friend of mine a while back and I have personally cleared the idea of auctioning the card with him previous to listing it out of respect.
The highest gaming resolution for this particular graphics card is 1366 x 768, with support for DirectX 6 and OpenGL 1.1. Anyone wanting to use this card for newer games might find it challenging. The process die's size is 250nm, compared to many processors currently that are well below 10nm. The die size is 112 mm2 with the Voodoo Scalable architecture. The memory size for the graphics card is 32 MB with a memory bus of 128 bits and 2.656 GB/s of bandwidth.
The highest clock speed for GPU and SDRAM memory on the Voodoo 5 6000 is 166 MHz. It is a single-slot board design with a TDP of 60W and a single VGA connector. The suggested power supply unit to be used is roughly 250W. This was one of the first gaming graphics cards for consumers that advertised 128MB memory on the device. The Voodoo 5 6000 must be powered externally, as the AGP slot was not powerful enough for the card. With the particular listing above, "gtastuntcrew302" enlisted the help of one of 3dfx Interactive's more prominent engineers, Hank Semenec, to allow for better power handling.
For those collectors and enthusiasts that would love a piece of graphics card history, we have provided the link to the eBay listing that ends in less than nine days.
News Sources: Tom's Hardware, Löschzwerg on Twitter, eBay
