VOGONS


First post, by drewking12

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Hello,
I recently bought a voodoo 3 3000 agp for a 1999 build I plan on completing. I have my eyes set on a few Pentium iii 550mhz prebuilts I found on eBay. I am told I will have to find a desktop that supports AGP 3.3 to run the voodoo 3. How do I tell if the motherboard will work with the card since I am aware of the different voltages (3.3, 1.5, 0.😎. I'm only really experienced with newer hardware so this is a little outside of my zone.

A couple of examples I looked at:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/388269226831?_trkpar … %3Avlp_homepage

https://www.ebay.com/itm/176967962147?_skw=pe … ABk9SR4zes-DTZQ

Would something like this work?

Reply 1 of 10, by sysctl

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Both of them have motherboards with 440BX which work really well with a voodoo 3. This is the best chipset for AGP 3.3V IMO. You won't have any compatibility or stability issues.
Dell comes with an intel OEM Board (Seattle 3) which is a very nice board. I have the two previous versions of this board (SE440BX-1 and SE440BX-2) both with voodoo 3 3000 in them. I had no problems, windows 98 and even 95 or DOS/WIN3.11 will work and are easy to install and setup. I had no issues with any games, even DOS games are working really well on voodoo 3. Windows games up until 1999-2000 are also working fine, even the ones that are known to cause issues like NFS Porsche Unleashed.

Reply 2 of 10, by konc

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You can visually distinguish the 3.3V AGP slot, it's keyed differently. Look at some pictures, even wikipedia has a nice comparison in its AGP article

Reply 3 of 10, by dionb

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"AGP 3.3" isn't correct terminology, that could be why you're having trouble getting the answers you need.

AGP comes in three flavours, 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. some marketing genius decided to sell them as "2x", "4x" and "8x" respectively.

1.0 was 3.3V only, 2.0 slots offer 3.3V and 1.5V, 3.0 slots offer 1.5V and 0.8V but not 3.3V.

You have a 3.3V AGP 1.0 Card, so need a 1.0 or 2.0 slot.

The motherboard chipset determines the AGP standard. Also as mentioned the slots are keyed. If the card fits it *should* be electrically compatible. There are corner cases though where this isn't true. These basically only occur when pushing the limits, i.e. very new motherboard compared to your old card. A period correct or even one gen newer board is a safe bet.

The systems you link to are from the same time as the V3 and also have (3.3V) AGP 1.0 ("2x") Slots thanks to their i440BX chipset. This chipset is an excellent period correct choice for compatibility and performance.

That does not apply more broadly for these systems though. This is an era in which specifically Dell and (in some systems) Compaq used proprietary power supply pinouts. They may look like a regular 20 pin ATX connector, but hook an ATX PSU up and fireworks will ensue 😦
Given that the PSU is one of the commonest components to fail in old systems, this is an unwelcome complication if you're not well-versed in the matter.

Unless you have a strong sentimental reason to go for Dell or Compaq, for a beginner I'd recommend choosing a more standards-based system (i.e. basically anything from that era that isn't Dell or Compaq).

Reply 6 of 10, by STX

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drewking12 wrote on 2025-05-08, 02:53:

It's a good match for a Voodoo 3. If the capacitors are good, then it'll work. Almost certainly. Almost.

In 2006, I had a NetVista PC similar to this one. It was very stable. Then I gave it to an elderly relative, who used it for email and eBay for about 3 years.

Reply 7 of 10, by drewking12

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STX wrote on 2025-05-08, 03:45:
drewking12 wrote on 2025-05-08, 02:53:

It's a good match for a Voodoo 3. If the capacitors are good, then it'll work. Almost certainly. Almost.

In 2006, I had a NetVista PC similar to this one. It was very stable. Then I gave it to an elderly relative, who used it for email and eBay for about 3 years.

Great because I just ordered it 🤣

Reply 8 of 10, by Intel486dx33

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These Voodoo cards are getting hard to find because they had manufacture and design flaws.
The 3dfx chip runs HOT.
So HOT that the Solder ball welds from the chip to the PCB break causing lost connection.
Also the Memory chip solder weld break too.
And the Capacitors break or leak.
Also the MOSFIT circuit Runs very HOT and it causes the Capacitors to leak and Ruin the PCB.

So you want to Put a Fan on your VooDoo card to Help keep it Cool.
Also you want a computer case with good ventiation and lots of fans.

Last edited by Intel486dx33 on 2025-05-09, 13:19. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 9 of 10, by pete8475

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Yes indeed they do run hot and I would suggest a fan as well. I've had one on my Voodoo 3 3000 for several years.