a_h_adl wrote on 2024-02-12, 22:17:

Awesome work and documentation! Now we need a before and after temperature comparison 😀

I don't have numbers, but before you could barely touch the heatsink after letting the Quake time demo run for a bit, now it's barely warm 😀 even the underside of the card is significantly cooler. I'll probably attach a thermocouple and get a few numbers at some point though!

ok, thermocouple numbers are in!
On top of the heatsink at the die, ambient temp 71F

No Fans: 136F stable during GLQuake
Fans: 86F stable during GLQuake

Results!

I put this cooler from Gelid Solutions, and the voodoo heatsink keeps it cool. The back of the graphic no longer burns as much.

I have a V3 2000 AGP in my 2nd Retro PC (P3-450, QDI 440BX) and wonder how I can remove the passive cooler because it looks like it is glued?

eliot_new wrote on 2025-10-02, 19:02:

I have a V3 2000 AGP in my 2nd Retro PC (P3-450, QDI 440BX) and wonder how I can remove the passive cooler because it looks like it is glued?

It's glued into place with thermal epoxy and requires a lot of care to take off without damaging the chip or the traces on the board connecting to the Voodoo 3 GPU's BGA balls. I have done it this way:

... jammed a craft knife blade in an edge I could see light through and put the card in the freezer for an hour, pulled it out and pushed the blade in a little further, then squished a second blade in between the heatsink and first blade until it went pop.

The important thing is to make sure you're applying force only to the top plastic of the GPU and not to the PCB part of the chip or the video card PCB, the traces and solder are fragile.

Alternatively, you could just get a slot bracket cooler and cool the card with a 92mm / 120mm fan instead, less risk to the card and it'll cool the RAM and voltage regulator as well as just the GPU. The original heatsink is well sized for the V3 2000 GPU, it just benefits greatly from active cooling.

i have voodoo 3 3000 agp that a got with some old pcs for less than $40 altogether, the seller didn't care, just want to get rid of his old pcs, of course i didn't tell him it's real value. Anyway, it was huge bargain. The voodoo card thankfully works perfectly fine, flashed it to bios 2.15 since it was 1.0.0 bios and replaced the old capacitors (some even broke off when i got it). Obviously, my biggest concern was the heat. i do not want my card to cook itself in my retro rig and wanted to replace the original stock heatsink since it is terrible for cooling the card. i originally add a fan but wasn't happy with it, so i decided to replace the heatsink entirely. The good news the voodoo 3 card's heatsink that i got has thermal paste not glue, which made my life much easier. However, the bad news it finding a proper replacement heatsink with fan for voodoo 3 cards is almost impossible due to Northbridge heatsink style design and any stock vintage GPU heatsink will not fit no matter what, not without modifying. I tried some stock Northbridge heatsink I found in aliexpress and not only it's super light but does a terrible job cooling the Voodoo 3 even with a fan/thermal paste, i got some recommendations from the retro community to get the EnzoTech SLF-1 Ultra low profile heatsink for the voodoo 3. The problem is those heatsinks are very hard to find and no longer in stock. After a while, I finally found one. the heatsink has real pure copper and has good weight to it. fits perfectly on the card, but it come with a very tiny fan, so i replaced it with slightly bigger fan i found on ebay that fits perfectly on the heatsink, add small heatsinks on to the chipsets around the heatsink with thermal pads, to keep the card nice and cool. it works like a charm.

vintageonthemoon wrote on 2025-12-20, 20:46:

i have voodoo 3 3000 agp that a got with some old pcs for less than $40 altogether, the seller didn't care, just want to get rid of his old pcs, of course i didn't tell him it's real value. Anyway, it was huge bargain. The voodoo card thankfully works perfectly fine, flashed it to bios 2.15 since it was 1.0.0 bios and replaced the old capacitors (some even broke off when i got it). Obviously, my biggest concern was the heat. i do not want my card to cook itself in my retro rig and wanted to replace the original stock heatsink since it is terrible for cooling the card. i originally add a fan but wasn't happy with it, so i decided to replace the heatsink entirely. The good news the voodoo 3 card's heatsink that i got has thermal past not glue, which made my life much easier. However, the bad news it finding a proper replacement heatsink with fan for voodoo 3 cards is almost impossible due to Northbridge heatsink style design and any stock vintage GPU heatsink will not fit no matter what, not without modifying. I tried some stock Northbridge heatsink I found in aliexpress and not only it's super light but does a terrible job cooling the Voodoo 3 even with a fan/thermal paste, i got some recommendations in the retro community to get the EnzoTech SLF-1 Ultra low profile heatsink for the voodoo 3. The problem is those heatsinks are very hard to find and no longer in stock. After a while, I finally found one. It has real pure copper heatsink and has good weight to it. fits perfectly on the card, but it come with a very dinky fan, so i replaced it with slightly bigger fan i found on ebay that fits perfectly on the heatsink, add tiny heatsinks on to the chipsets around the heatsink with thermal pads, to keep the card nice and cool. it works like a charm.

Looks awesome! Just be sure those memory heatsinks don't come loose over time. I had some stick-on heatsinks that fell right off of a card after using it for several months. I was very fortunate that they didn't short anything out when they fell. 😮

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-12-20, 21:17:

vintageonthemoon wrote on 2025-12-20, 20:46:

i have voodoo 3 3000 agp that a got with some old pcs for less than $40 altogether, the seller didn't care, just want to get rid of his old pcs, of course i didn't tell him it's real value. Anyway, it was huge bargain. The voodoo card thankfully works perfectly fine, flashed it to bios 2.15 since it was 1.0.0 bios and replaced the old capacitors (some even broke off when i got it). Obviously, my biggest concern was the heat. i do not want my card to cook itself in my retro rig and wanted to replace the original stock heatsink since it is terrible for cooling the card. i originally add a fan but wasn't happy with it, so i decided to replace the heatsink entirely. The good news the voodoo 3 card's heatsink that i got has thermal past not glue, which made my life much easier. However, the bad news it finding a proper replacement heatsink with fan for voodoo 3 cards is almost impossible due to Northbridge heatsink style design and any stock vintage GPU heatsink will not fit no matter what, not without modifying. I tried some stock Northbridge heatsink I found in aliexpress and not only it's super light but does a terrible job cooling the Voodoo 3 even with a fan/thermal paste, i got some recommendations in the retro community to get the EnzoTech SLF-1 Ultra low profile heatsink for the voodoo 3. The problem is those heatsinks are very hard to find and no longer in stock. After a while, I finally found one. It has real pure copper heatsink and has good weight to it. fits perfectly on the card, but it come with a very dinky fan, so i replaced it with slightly bigger fan i found on ebay that fits perfectly on the heatsink, add tiny heatsinks on to the chipsets around the heatsink with thermal pads, to keep the card nice and cool. it works like a charm.

Looks awesome! Just be sure those memory heatsinks don't come loose over time. I had some stick-on heatsinks that fell right off of a card after using it for several months. I was very fortunate that they didn't short anything out when they fell. 😮

good the know, there holding well for couple of months now, im using thermal pads that i bought separately and then add the heatsinks, should i rather use more thin double side thermal stickers? similar to the ones radeon cards used to use on their heatsinks back in the day. i just don't want to use thermal glue for obvious reasons

vintageonthemoon wrote on 2025-12-20, 21:30:

good the know, there holding well for couple of months now, im using thermal pads that i bought separately and then add the heatsinks, should i rather use more thin double side thermal stickers? similar to the ones radeon cards used to use on their heatsinks back in the day. i just don't want to use thermal glue for obvious reasons

I don't want to give any product recommendations in case it ends up leading to disaster 🤣. If what you have is working and you check them from time to time, you're probably okay. 😀

Otherwise, a tiny dab of some kind of glue in a corner of each chip would probably help as a backup plan in case the adhesive fails.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-12-20, 21:34:

vintageonthemoon wrote on 2025-12-20, 21:30:

good the know, there holding well for couple of months now, im using thermal pads that i bought separately and then add the heatsinks, should i rather use more thin double side thermal stickers? similar to the ones radeon cards used to use on their heatsinks back in the day. i just don't want to use thermal glue for obvious reasons

I don't want to give any product recommendations in case it ends up leading to disaster 🤣. If what you have is working and you check them from time to time, you're probably okay. 😀

Otherwise, a tiny dab of some kind of glue in a corner of each chip would probably help as a backup plan in case the adhesive fails.

not a bad idea, might do that in the near future 👍

vintageonthemoon wrote on 2025-12-20, 20:46:

...bios 2.15...

congratulations! can you plz share this bios as I have bought a V3-3k too?
thx a lot in advance!

eliot_new wrote on 2025-12-21, 20:08:

vintageonthemoon wrote on 2025-12-20, 20:46:

...bios 2.15...

congratulations! can you plz share this bios as I have bought a V3-3k too?
thx a lot in advance!

well it depends apparently my card is OEM version so the bios is a bit different then the ones on the official listing, when i flashed it with the ones from the official link, it bricked my card. thankfully i was able to use generic pci card along with my voodoo 3 agp card to flash the bios with correct the version, the bios itself 2.15 (oem bios) i thankfully found it on here on vogons Flashing 3dfx bios , here's the archives of the voodoo 3 bios https://3dfxbios.cl-rahden.de/index.php?title=Voodoo3, and a video of someone fixing/flashing the card https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2rIfqd_-rg