Passive heatsinks are usually never a bad a idea if you have the space.

I wouldn't glue anything on the card. (I think only Gainward cards originally came with green heatsinks).
Just put dual fan bracket in slot below the card.

This is my setup for Voodoo 3 with two 92mm fans blowing silently at 5V:

stef80 wrote on 2021-03-23, 17:38:

I wouldn't glue anything on the card. (I think only Gainward cards originally came with green heatsinks).
Just put dual fan bracket in slot below the card.

This is my setup for Voodoo 3 with two 92mm fans blowing silently at 5V:

I like this idea, thanks! I’m such an old fart I forget that things like this exist now and not just those turbine exhaust slot fans from the early 2000s 😜

I’ve used thermal tape on my Voodoo IIs, so that the mod is reversible should I come to shift them on to a purist, not that I’m likely to shift them on.

The chips absolutely need heatsinks, they run at burning hot temperatures and it is not healthy to them in any way. I used thermal tape to get heatsinks on my card and also mounted a laptop fan to blow air through them, keeping temperatures less awful.

Generally 3dfx card run quite hot, however, they can also withstand quite a lot of heat. In normal situations you don't have to add extra cooling. I define a 'normal situation' with a slight breeze of fresh air in your system case, no overclocking and not putting your system in a room that is over, let's say, 25C/77F or higher. Also, the more hardware in your system, the more attention you have to pay to cooling (i.e. SLI, dual-CPU, extra controller cards).

I'm not against adding extra cooling but I often read that "they run too hot to touch so they need cooling!". Keep in mind: it's a chip, not a human. For us humans 50C/122F is hot and on the edge of being able to touch it for a longer period. For a chip... 50C/122F is peanuts 😀.

Back in the day when 3dfx-stuff was new the cards ran games for hours and hours, year after year without any issues. Also arcade systems ran most of the day for years with the graphics chip stressed.

If you're uncomfortable with running without extra cooling I'd suggest adding an extra bit of airflow in the region of your Voodoo card. That way you don't have to modify anything and other components in that area (or in your system case) will benefit from the cooling as well.

A note on sticking adhesive heatsinks on the chips: if the adhesive is very sticky then be careful if you remove them. If they stick really well then the QFP-legs on the 3dfx chips are going to be the weakest link. In other words: you might tear off the 3dfx chip from the PCB. On cards with factory installed heatsinks (like the A-Trend Helios 3D Voodoo that is actually sold by A-Trend themselves) I try to pry a blade between the chip and the heatsink and then lift of the heatsink using a the blade (and eventually a flat screwdriver) by pushing the heatsink of the chip so you avoid pulling the chip from the PCB.

@paradigital
Nice Guillemot MAXI Gamer3D2 card! Both your BE and CK chips are dated week 14 1998. I had two of these (8MB versions) running in SLI that both had the PCB date and BE/CK-chips dated 14th week of 1998. Not that it matters in any way but it was a 100% matched pair 😀.

@paradigital
Those look nice. I mean heatsinks. Where did you source them from?

Thandor wrote on 2021-03-24, 08:07:

Generally 3dfx card run quite hot, however, they can also withstand quite a lot of heat. In normal situations you don't have to add extra cooling. I define a 'normal situation' with a slight breeze of fresh air in your system case, no overclocking and not putting your system in a room that is over, let's say, 25C/77F or higher. Also, the more hardware in your system, the more attention you have to pay to cooling (i.e. SLI, dual-CPU, extra controller cards).

I'm not against adding extra cooling but I often read that "they run too hot to touch so they need cooling!". Keep in mind: it's a chip, not a human. For us humans 50C/122F is hot and on the edge of being able to touch it for a longer period. For a chip... 50C/122F is peanuts 😀.

If it was +50ºC it wouldn't be so bad but It is more like +70ºC on the surface when I measured chips on my cards, while the card is in open air not cramped computer case. Die temperature is going to be significantly higher, probably near the +80ºC since those thick plastic packages have huge thermal resistance, which that is at the limits of what is healthy for any kind of silicon. Those cards should have never shipped without heatsinks or even active cooling, it will certainly reduce lifetime of the chips and probably shaving decade+ off what they could achieve if they weren't running on the verge of physical limits...

If you want to go period correct
http://www.hardware-one.com/reviews/tennmax/tennmax-2.shtml

In my experience just a decent fan (80 or 120mm) blowing air near the cards is more than enough, the chips get only slightly warm at full load even without heatsinks.

On the other hand, with just heatsinks and no proper airflow they still get uncomfortably hot.

So I would give priority to getting a fan near the cards, if you have one of those cases where you can mount a fan on the side panel it would be ideal.

Regarding adhesives, there are excellent thermal conductive pads from reputable brands that can easily keep a heatsink on and at the same time are not like glue and can be easily removed. 3M has a lot of these products and they look like in the attached photo (I'm not suggesting alibaba but 3M, this is just a good photo showing what they really look like)

TheMobRules wrote on 2021-03-24, 17:02:

In my experience just a decent fan (80 or 120mm) blowing air near the cards is more than enough, the chips get only slightly warm at full load even without heatsinks.

On the other hand, with just heatsinks and no proper airflow they still get uncomfortably hot.

So I would give priority to getting a fan near the cards, if you have one of those cases where you can mount a fan on the side panel it would be ideal.

depends on how fast your cpu is.

stef80 wrote on 2021-03-24, 08:24:

@paradigital
Those look nice. I mean heatsinks. Where did you source them from?

If I remember correctly it was an eBay purchase, I’ll see if I still have the product in my history as it was a while ago.

EDIT: It was this seller https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/273019887225. Looks like they don’t have any green left though (picture 22 of 24)

These appear to be the same though, and available. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254211892518

Thandor wrote on 2021-03-24, 08:07:

@paradigital
Nice Guillemot MAXI Gamer3D2 card! Both your BE and CK chips are dated week 14 1998. I had two of these (8MB versions) running in SLI that both had the PCB date and BE/CK-chips dated 14th week of 1998. Not that it matters in any way but it was a 100% matched pair 😀.

They are lovely cards, and considering I only picked them up 12 months ago, I didn’t get fleeced on price either. These two are 8MB cards and I’ve been umming and aahing about upgrading them to 12MB, decisions decisions!

Alright, I’m going the route of 3M taped heatsinks and a dual fan setup mounted in the adjacent PCI slots. Does anyone have the die size for the chips? Above recommended seemed 37mm heatsinks are the way to go?

This video by Phil addresses this issue very well.
I can confirm that a dual fan bracket below the card is more than enough to properly cool any Voodoo card, including Voodoo 3 PCI cards with those pesky voltage regulators that run even hotter than the chip (they can easily hit 90+ C in a closed case).

I ordered three 55mm fans off ali express for about 10 USD after shipping.

They will overhang the chips by a bit, but I think there is enough room. Putting small heatinks on the memory probably can't hurt either. I found 60 pieces of 8.8mmx8.8mm aluminum heatinks on amazon for another 10 dollars.

Mine have heatsinks glued on with thermal epoxy. They are the less desirable 90 ns version so I don't really care and I think they look cool.

These are the correct size and have thermal tape so you can remove them if you want.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FX6MJMV/ … 0?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Zero_sugar wrote on 2021-03-27, 07:30:

Mine have heatsinks glued on with thermal epoxy. They are the less desirable 90 ns version so I don't really care and I think they look cool.

These are the correct size and have thermal tape so you can remove them if you want.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FX6MJMV/ … 0?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Ordered! Coming in on Monday, along with a dual fan setup 😀

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-03-26, 15:56:

I ordered three 55mm fans off ali express for about 10 USD after shipping. […]
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I ordered three 55mm fans off ali express for about 10 USD after shipping.

They will overhang the chips by a bit, but I think there is enough room. Putting small heatinks on the memory probably can't hurt either. I found 60 pieces of 8.8mmx8.8mm aluminum heatinks on amazon for another 10 dollars.

Any idea if the pins for this cooler are compatible with Voodoo 3 3000?