Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-05-09, 18:22:

I never had a 3dfx card in their heyday. I was aware of them, and I can remember wanting a Voodoo 2 at the time. But they weren […]
Show full quote

I never had a 3dfx card in their heyday. I was aware of them, and I can remember wanting a Voodoo 2 at the time.
But they weren't cheap, I was a kid and my parents weren't shelling out the dough as I already had a "gaming PC"
(It was a k6-2 with a SiS 6236..)

But I did purchase some later on when I was getting back into the retro hardware.
I'm cheap, I found some listings on ebay where the seller only knew enough to put photos with bad descriptions.
In short I picked up a V3 3000 AGP for about $20 and a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI for about $25.
This was around late 2016 to early 2017.

I haven't seen anything of the like on ebay since then, but I suppose it is possible deals still crop up from time to time.
Long story short, I like these cards but they simply aren't worth what they regularly sell for, at least not to me.

2017 was far to late for deals on 3dfx.

This is from 9/13/2007

Payment Details

Purchased From:lilisaur
Transaction ID:2B049330LP2443836

Item # Item Title Quantity Price Subtotal
220148326303 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP Video Card 1 $1.25 USD $1.25 USD

Shipping & Handling via USPS First Class Mail to 445XX
(includes any seller handling fees) $5.50 USD
Shipping Insurance (not offered): --

Total: $6.75 USD
Note:Let me know when you ship, thanks.

This was a Voodoo 3500 with breakout cable and the double jewel case with the original disks and manual. Shipping was much cheaper back then as well. People back then were giving away 3dfx hardware just to get it out of the house and also including all the misc. stuff you have to buy separately today. It was also the golden age for snagging boxed items cheap.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-05-08, 17:23:

Even if someone feels that a piece of hardware is overhyped and overpriced, they aren't going to list something for $50 if they think they can get $300 for it.

That's the negative effect of 'the long tail'. Without a factory in Mexico pumping them out, without limited space in a distribution warehouse, without new products shoving old inventory aside on the shop shelves, people currently in possession of anything with a 3Dfx logo on it can simply sit on it indefinitely. There will be no mark-downs, no clearence sales. Everything must not go.

Well yeah, prices have gone nuts for a lot of retro stuff. I do wish I had a time machine.

Several Voodoo cards passed through my hands in the early 2000s as I was gifted old computers. I had no use for them so sold them on, sometimes for literally pennies (I made profit on the postage)

Few people collect when items hit the obsolete garbage stage of their lives.

andre_6 wrote on 2023-05-09, 17:59:

At the Voodoo 3's launch time it was already behind in some aspects for example.

Technical like texture size or framebuffer depth. In practice gameplay and actual visible picture quality were top notch. Price was ~equal to TNT2.
There was a reason behind Voodoo3 dominating sales in 1999 https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/1999 … hottest-selling

> "3dfx Voodoo3 boards took the top five spots in the retail space for 3D
graphics products, while retaining the top position since the introduction of
the line,
>"Our data shows that the Voodoo3 product family is selling
better than all other boards at retail."

andre_6 wrote on 2023-05-09, 17:59:

We had a Voodoo 3 at the house bought some months after launch that was paired with a Pentium III at the time, and when the PC was passed down to me by my father I distinctly remember having many different problems with newer games from 2000.

most of those problems you would experience on TNT2. A cheap solution was buying $120 GeForce2 MX 400 as soon as it launched in mid 2000 https://www.anandtech.com/show/570/11 down to $75 year later.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-05-09, 18:22:

I never had a 3dfx card in their heyday. I was aware of them, and I can remember wanting a Voodoo 2 at the time.
But they weren't cheap,

Voodoo3 was cheap. October 1999 suggested retail US $99.99 Voodoo3 2000 and $149.99 Voodoo3 3000
Quoting myself October 1999 in Europe Re: Are Voodoo graphics card THAT good ?
"3dfx Voodoo2 $75 DEALS section
16MB TNT2 M64 $75 DEALS section
cheapest TNT $75
cheapest garbage Savage4 $81
Voodoo3 2000 $120
Voodoo3 3000 $150
cheapest TNT2 $196
TNT2 Ultra $258

Voodoo3 was a no brainer in late 1999, with Voodoo3 2000 being great budget option, and 3000 a top performer at half the price of TNT2Ultra."

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-05-09, 18:22:

I was a kid and my parents weren't shelling out the dough as I already had a "gaming PC" (It was a k6-2 with a SiS 6236..)

was it one of those $500 PCs from 2000?

@Jasin Natael I also never had a 3dfx card when they were a thing. My first graphics card was some kind of ati tv card GPU combo, it was not that great. I do not remember the name. My second real video card was the Asus 7100 which was based on the GF2 MX.

I got into 3dfx cards recently though. I l really like the 3dfx look of some of the older games after I have tried out some older games via Nglide on my modern-day rig. If I get the chance I will ad Vodoo 2 card as a second card to my upcoming reto gaming pc.

If the Voodoo3 2000 was $120 and the Voodoo3 3000 was $150, what was the equivalent cost for the Banshee?

feipoa wrote on 2023-05-10, 10:12:

If the Voodoo3 2000 was $120 and the Voodoo3 3000 was $150, what was the equivalent cost for the Banshee?

Well the Banshee was just a cut down Voodoo 2 with the same 2d core the Voodoo 3 ended up using, so likely 10 - 20% less then what you would price the Voodoo2 12Mb at, this is for the much more common Banshee AGP version. The Banshee PCI version however attracts a higher price but this is also the case for all PCI 3dfx cards with 2d cores.

Unknown_K wrote on 2023-05-09, 20:15:

Few people collect when items hit the obsolete garbage stage of their lives.

Because at that time, most people who later do become interested in them, aren't interested in them at that time, for a variety of reasons.
It was junk! I was crazy that I actually wanted that old junk. It would never become valuable and this opinion was even shared by people who were into retro computing at that time "because millions were mass-produced, these will never become collectible".
So very few people back then were there scooping up the stuff.

I had no idea it would ever become this bad (to buy it that is). I thought €25 for a NIB Voodoo 2 was already quite surprising. Even then I didn't realize what prices would be in the years to come. I just wanted some 3dfx cards because of its practical applications.

feipoa wrote on 2023-05-10, 10:12:

If the Voodoo3 2000 was $120 and the Voodoo3 3000 was $150, what was the equivalent cost for the Banshee?

Banshee was
- over half a year earlier
- Imo a bad product https://www.anandtech.com/show/197/10 http://www.thg.ru/graphic/19980720/print.html more like a test run.

I have a hard time tracking original MSRP 🙁 but that second link says "Banshee is selling for almost the same price as Savage3D" in July 1998, and Savage3D was somewhere between $100-150.
By April 1999 http://www.telecommander.com/pics/links/vgaca … %20Graphics.htm
2 months before Voodoo3 release suggested retail prices:
Voodoo3 2000 $129.99
Voodoo3 3000 $179.99
Voodoo3 3500 $249.99

for comparison on the market:
Voodoo2 SLI $250
Voodoo2 $125
TNT $130
Banshee $110

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-05-09, 18:22:

I never had a 3dfx card in their heyday. I was aware of them, and I can remember wanting a Voodoo 2 at the time.
But they weren't cheap,

Voodoo3 was cheap. October 1999 suggested retail US $99.99 Voodoo3 2000 and $149.99 Voodoo3 3000
Quoting myself October 1999 in Europe Re: Are Voodoo graphics card THAT good ?
"3dfx Voodoo2 $75 DEALS section
16MB TNT2 M64 $75 DEALS section
cheapest TNT $75
cheapest garbage Savage4 $81
Voodoo3 2000 $120
Voodoo3 3000 $150
cheapest TNT2 $196
TNT2 Ultra $258

Voodoo3 was a no brainer in late 1999, with Voodoo3 2000 being great budget option, and 3000 a top performer at half the price of TNT2Ultra."

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-05-09, 18:22:

I was a kid and my parents weren't shelling out the dough as I already had a "gaming PC" (It was a k6-2 with a SiS 6236..)

was it one of those $500 PCs from 2000?
[/quote]

To be clear, they weren't expensive for a gaming graphics card. But they WERE expensive for a high school student with no job.
I was 15 at time and wouldn't get my first job until later that same year.
All of the money my parents were willing to spend on me at the time was being put towards a Fender Stratocaster and lessons to learn to play it, later and amplifier as well.

Edit: I'm not sure, it was a white box build from a seller on Pricewatch.com. I think that we got it in September or November of 1998?
A PC Chips m598LMR based system, iirc. SIS530 chipset with the integrated 6326 AGP video that was a parasitic draw on memory bandwidth.
It was a terrible PC but i loved it.

I was in the penniless phase 99-00 and scraped up $50 for a closeout sale on a V3 2000 PCI to go in my 430TX + K6-2 machine and got a couple of years of enjoyment out of it, until all the game demos got a bit slideshowy.

However, I felt that enthusiasm around Voodoos and from mid noughts, I was buying them when I saw them, because I thought they were kinda neat. Like being a kid geologist in flatland farm country, getting a neat collection of rocks with nobody around to show them to or talk about them. That going for most of the stuff I retained because I thought it was cool up until PC retro scene really started picking up around 2015. So they were kinda guilty pleasure, "bunch of dumb rocks" for years, just a handful, just for me.... ... had I known they were gonna balloon in value I would have been stockpiling them industrial style... but then had a number of anyones all really done that, they'd be $20 or $30 the same as TNT2s today.

I remember I replaced my PCI Voodoo card with a PCI Riva TNT because it had better graphics.
I think I was running Win98.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-05-10, 14:00:

To be clear, they weren't expensive for a gaming graphics card. But they WERE expensive for a high school student with no job. […]
Show full quote

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-05-10, 06:05:

Voodoo3 was cheap. October 1999 suggested retail US $99.99 Voodoo3 2000 and $149.99 Voodoo3 3000 Quoting myself October 1999 in […]
Show full quote

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-05-09, 18:22:

I never had a 3dfx card in their heyday. I was aware of them, and I can remember wanting a Voodoo 2 at the time.
But they weren't cheap,

Voodoo3 was cheap. October 1999 suggested retail US $99.99 Voodoo3 2000 and $149.99 Voodoo3 3000
Quoting myself October 1999 in Europe Re: Are Voodoo graphics card THAT good ?
"3dfx Voodoo2 $75 DEALS section
16MB TNT2 M64 $75 DEALS section
cheapest TNT $75
cheapest garbage Savage4 $81
Voodoo3 2000 $120
Voodoo3 3000 $150
cheapest TNT2 $196
TNT2 Ultra $258

Voodoo3 was a no brainer in late 1999, with Voodoo3 2000 being great budget option, and 3000 a top performer at half the price of TNT2Ultra."

To be clear, they weren't expensive for a gaming graphics card. But they WERE expensive for a high school student with no job.
I was 15 at time and wouldn't get my first job until later that same year.
All of the money my parents were willing to spend on me at the time was being put towards a Fender Stratocaster and lessons to learn to play it, later and amplifier as well.

I got myself a TNT in late '98 because I needed a capable AGP card for my new Celeron 300A. That card I used for more than a year and never felt like I needed anything more. With the above prices I would also say that the Voodoo3 was not for everybody. Adjusted for US inflation that's $270 for a V3-3000. Actually for me the no-brainer is the TNT2 M64. But the market was constantly changing back then so few weeks earlier or later things might have looked completely different.

I respect the TNT M64 for it's very late 90s 3D chops, but grind my teeth when I flip open another early atx box looking for treasure and find only a middling P4 and a TNT M64 🤣

(I think I've accidentally/incidentally collected more TNT M64 than any other combined range now)

HanSolo wrote on 2023-05-10, 18:32:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-05-10, 14:00:

To be clear, they weren't expensive for a gaming graphics card. But they WERE expensive for a high school student with no job. […]
Show full quote

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-05-10, 06:05:

Voodoo3 was cheap. October 1999 suggested retail US $99.99 Voodoo3 2000 and $149.99 Voodoo3 3000 Quoting myself October 1999 in […]
Show full quote

Voodoo3 was cheap. October 1999 suggested retail US $99.99 Voodoo3 2000 and $149.99 Voodoo3 3000
Quoting myself October 1999 in Europe Re: Are Voodoo graphics card THAT good ?
"3dfx Voodoo2 $75 DEALS section
16MB TNT2 M64 $75 DEALS section
cheapest TNT $75
cheapest garbage Savage4 $81
Voodoo3 2000 $120
Voodoo3 3000 $150
cheapest TNT2 $196
TNT2 Ultra $258

Voodoo3 was a no brainer in late 1999, with Voodoo3 2000 being great budget option, and 3000 a top performer at half the price of TNT2Ultra."

To be clear, they weren't expensive for a gaming graphics card. But they WERE expensive for a high school student with no job.
I was 15 at time and wouldn't get my first job until later that same year.
All of the money my parents were willing to spend on me at the time was being put towards a Fender Stratocaster and lessons to learn to play it, later and amplifier as well.

I got myself a TNT in late '98 because I needed a capable AGP card for my new Celeron 300A. That card I used for more than a year and never felt like I needed anything more. With the above prices I would also say that the Voodoo3 was not for everybody. Adjusted for US inflation that's $270 for a V3-3000. Actually for me the no-brainer is the TNT2 M64. But the market was constantly changing back then so few weeks earlier or later things might have looked completely different.

Maybe an odd question, but if you felt like you never needed anything more, then why did you use it for only more than a year?
To me the TNT felt lacking fairly quickly (used it for as long as that rig kept being used on a regular basis, about a year or 6) and its touted 32 bit gaming performance never seemed to be actually playable.
Ahh yes, the TNT2 M64. Definitely one of the more useful cut-down budget cards.

so few weeks earlier or later things might have looked completely different.

Remember when some factory got damaged during an earthquake or burned down and SDRAM prices basically tripled or quadrupled almost overnight?

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-05-10, 22:21:

I respect the TNT M64 for it's very late 90s 3D chops, but grind my teeth when I flip open another early atx box looking for treasure and find only a middling P4 and a TNT M64 🤣

(I think I've accidentally/incidentally collected more TNT M64 than any other combined range now)

I'm sure you meant TNT2 M64. Btw it does make me wonder if NV ever made a cut-down budget version of TNT. If there is, then I keep forgetting and it must be a pretty forgettable product 😋
There was also Vanta.

STB Velocity 4400 was probably my first new AGP card and the drivers that came with it were buggy as hell with all kinds of graphics glitches. I believe it was the first TNT on the market. Speaking of firsts, I had to mail order my first 3D card before it was available in stores and that was the Orchid Rightous 3D Voodoo 1 (clickety clack).

Should have kept all the boxes for my early cards but at least I didn't trash my Voodoo 5 5500 box.

NV ever made a cut-down budget version of TNT

TNT had cut-down version with 64-bit bus and 8Mb VRAM. Vanta LT was probably direct replacement.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-05-10, 22:21:

I respect the TNT M64 for it's very late 90s 3D chops, but grind my teeth when I flip open another early atx box looking for treasure and find only a middling P4 and a TNT M64 🤣

(I think I've accidentally/incidentally collected more TNT M64 than any other combined range now)

I can't even describe what the TNT2 M64 meant for me.
I went from an S3 Virge DX to an ATI Rage IIC (haha, 'major' upgrade!).

Finally, in the year 2000 I upgraded to a Riva TNT2 M64, and... all of a sudden, all of my 3D games were actually running!!! Not only that, but they looked as they were supposed to! 😁
Truthfully, this card meant everything to me. My favorite gaming memories revolve around it.
And, having said that, even though I own quite a few TNT2 M64s nowadays, I just realized that I don't have this card in any of my full builds - I should definitely fix that. 😀 It is not a card that one typically chooses for a retro build (since there are much better and still cheap options nowadays), but I personally should use it.