All very nice cards.👍
What's your definition of a complete collection though?

Well the choice of words was a bit poor..

I meant that it is my entire 3dfx collection.
Complete, well there certainly is room for the wannahave 5 6000.
Furthermore the rush, velocity 100, 3 3500tv and 4 4500.
One of the vd2 cards (top right) is not working properly and filthy (may be the reason) and the voodoo1 is probably defective since it crashes my pc the second my pc wants anything from it.

Your Voodoo 3 doesn't look like any Voodoo 3 I've seen in the flesh:P

Aebtdom wrote on 2021-03-16, 22:44:

Well the choice of words was a bit poor.. […]
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Well the choice of words was a bit poor..

I meant that it is my entire 3dfx collection.
Complete, well there certainly is room for the wannahave 5 6000.
Furthermore the rush, velocity 100, 3 3500tv and 4 4500.
One of the vd2 cards (top right) is not working properly and filthy (may be the reason) and the voodoo1 is probably defective since it crashes my pc the second my pc wants anything from it.

Ah, now I get it: After ten years collecting you post your collection. I read it as "after ten years I finished my collection." and I was a bit surprised. 😉
Too bad about the defective cards though, especially the V1. Always nice to have one for a Pentium machine.

Tetrium wrote on 2021-03-17, 00:46:

Your Voodoo 3 doesn't look like any Voodoo 3 I've seen in the flesh:P

It looks a lot like the Powercolor EvilKing3 Pro but in green and without solder spots for TV out.
It also says C355A on it but Ver:1.0 so it's probably the same card just an earlier revision. Never seen it before either.

Tetrium wrote on 2021-03-17, 00:46:

Your Voodoo 3 doesn't look like any Voodoo 3 I've seen in the flesh:P

It is the Powercolor Evilking 3.

The green EK3 is not so common variant, but shows up from time to time.
Oh, and one of your V2s has the new 3dfx logos, nice. 😀

Aebtdom wrote on 2021-03-17, 08:45:

Tetrium wrote on 2021-03-17, 00:46:

Your Voodoo 3 doesn't look like any Voodoo 3 I've seen in the flesh:P

It is the Powercolor Evilking 3.

Nice card. Especially with the 5.5ns RAM. Have you tried overclocking it?

I'm not overclocking any of my retrocards.. I'd like to be able to use them as long as possible...

Please don't read this post as me telling you what to do with your stuff. If you don't feel comfortable changing stock speeds I've got no issue with that. Plus if you're happy with how the card performs as it is, that's awesome!
It's just that my reasoning here is very different:
-3dfx sold the same chip clocked at 183MHz.
-The memory modules on your card are rated for 183MHz as well.
-Increasing clock speeds doesn't mean you're overvolting the card either.
Meaning if you increase the clocks on your card to 183MHz this does not mean you're not running any of the chips out of spec.
-Also this card has an active cooler while 3dfx sold their cards passively cooled. Heat isn't going to be an issue either.
All in all it appears this card was designed to be overclocked.
Voodoo3 cards' performance scales really well with increasing clocks too assuming you run them in a fast enough system.

If this was about voltmodding the card to squeeze 5fps out of it in some benchmark I would agree this is pointless and will decrease the card's life span.
But in this situation I really don't see a reason not to perform a moderate overclock, not even from a longevity standpoint.
I mean you're not underclocking the card either even though technically this would increase its life span as well, right?

Thank you for the information.
So you don't think they have used lesser samples which run stable at 166 instead of 183 like the 3500?
I'll give it some thoughts, because it would be interesting just to see how it compares to stock and the rest of the cards in my benchmark project.

havli wrote on 2021-03-17, 10:05:

Oh, and one of your V2s has the new 3dfx logos, nice. 😀

You mean that some vendors were still baking those technologically outdated 3D only cards well into the new millennium? Unbelievable.

Aebtdom wrote on 2021-03-17, 22:52:

Thank you for the information.
So you don't think they have used lesser samples which run stable at 166 instead of 183 like the 3500?
I'll give it some thoughts, because it would be interesting just to see how it compares to stock and the rest of the cards in my benchmark project.

They would certainly bin the chips to be able to sustain their advertised clocks even when running hot. But binning wasn't as precise back then as it is now. Also they would occasionally put faster RAM than needed on a card, probably when running low on the card's rated speed RAM. I don't think they treated chip selection as an exact science.
I believe the EvilKing cards were all made later in the Avenger chip's life time when 3dfx had better yields than initially so there's a good chance your chip performs better than advertised. (btw. what's the mfg date on your V3's PCB?)
From my experience with Voodoo3 cards any of the seven V3 2000 AGP I own has been able to reach rock stable 166MHz and any of my eight V3 3000 AGP reaches 183MHz. All on stock passive cooling.
My best overclocking V3 is a 3000 AGP with 6ns (166MHz) RAM. It goes beyond 210MHz with an 80mm fan blowing on it. I also have a 3000 AGP with 5.5ns (183MHz) RAM that starts artifacting at about 202MHz.
This is why I interpret the chips' rated speeds more as an "at least" than an "at best". Production and sales need some fixed specification to build and sell cards, yet each chip and each card is different. If I can run them cool and stable at stock voltages anything beyond the card's rated speed is just part its unique characteristics.

Well, I have done as you have requested.
The performance boost scales well with the increasing clockspeed. I put the clock at 183Mhz and started some benchmarking.
I did three different runs with 3dmark 99 and each run at a different screenres.
The one I remeber is the 640x480 run. I got a score of 10500 ish. Which was impressive, were it not for the artifacts showing. Hence 166Mhz it remains.
Thanks for the info though. Still not fond of oc'ing retro hardware.

Thanks for giving it a try and reporting back! 😀
If it artifacts it's really not good for overclocking. I'm really surprised about it though.
Maybe 3dfx only sold chips that barely qualified for their rated speed to third parties?
Still a very cool card for its unique layout.
Cheers!

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-03-18, 19:02:

Thanks for giving it a try and reporting back! :-) If it artifacts it's really not good for overclocking. I'm really surprised a […]
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Thanks for giving it a try and reporting back! 😀
If it artifacts it's really not good for overclocking. I'm really surprised about it though.
Maybe 3dfx only sold chips that barely qualified for their rated speed to third parties?
Still a very cool card for its unique layout.
Cheers!

Or perhaps the chip was already overclocked by the card manufacturer?

Tetrium wrote on 2021-03-19, 18:05:

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-03-18, 19:02:

Thanks for giving it a try and reporting back! :-) If it artifacts it's really not good for overclocking. I'm really surprised a […]
Show full quote

Thanks for giving it a try and reporting back! 😀
If it artifacts it's really not good for overclocking. I'm really surprised about it though.
Maybe 3dfx only sold chips that barely qualified for their rated speed to third parties?
Still a very cool card for its unique layout.
Cheers!

Or perhaps the chip was already overclocked by the card manufacturer?

Could also be though if they were cutting corners like that they would have probably also used slower memory.

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-03-19, 18:48:

Tetrium wrote on 2021-03-19, 18:05:

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-03-18, 19:02:

Thanks for giving it a try and reporting back! :-) If it artifacts it's really not good for overclocking. I'm really surprised a […]
Show full quote

Thanks for giving it a try and reporting back! 😀
If it artifacts it's really not good for overclocking. I'm really surprised about it though.
Maybe 3dfx only sold chips that barely qualified for their rated speed to third parties?
Still a very cool card for its unique layout.
Cheers!

Or perhaps the chip was already overclocked by the card manufacturer?

Could also be though if they were cutting corners like that they would have probably also used slower memory.

Iirc Voodoo 3 cards made by STB cards also often used faster memory. My guess is that stock of the slower memory was low, so they would sometimes used the faster one.
So it wouldn't surprise me if this is the reason this card also received faster memory. And it got active cooling, so the chip would run more stable when clocked a bit higher.

Tetrium wrote on 2021-03-19, 20:53:

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-03-19, 18:48:

Tetrium wrote on 2021-03-19, 18:05:

Or perhaps the chip was already overclocked by the card manufacturer?

Could also be though if they were cutting corners like that they would have probably also used slower memory.

Iirc Voodoo 3 cards made by STB cards also often used faster memory. My guess is that stock of the slower memory was low, so they would sometimes used the faster one.
So it wouldn't surprise me if this is the reason this card also received faster memory. And it got active cooling, so the chip would run more stable when clocked a bit higher.

Seeing as the later EvilKing mostly have 5ns memory I believe they used fast chips by choice.

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-03-19, 22:43:

Tetrium wrote on 2021-03-19, 20:53:

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-03-19, 18:48:

Could also be though if they were cutting corners like that they would have probably also used slower memory.

Iirc Voodoo 3 cards made by STB cards also often used faster memory. My guess is that stock of the slower memory was low, so they would sometimes used the faster one.
So it wouldn't surprise me if this is the reason this card also received faster memory. And it got active cooling, so the chip would run more stable when clocked a bit higher.

Seeing as the later EvilKing mostly have 5ns memory I believe they used fast chips by choice.

I'm not convinced it was by choice. Unless there are actually design schematics available that this was done conciously and not for the same reasons STB used faster chips.

For all we know EvilKing gave it active cooling so they could overclock the chip to 166MHz in the first place:P This would explain why the chip can't reach 183MHz reliably even with active cooling while the memory chips (apparently) can.

And it wouldn't make much of a point to add faster memory chips on purpose so they could make a card intended for overclocking when the most important part of the graphics card isn't actually capable of handling even such a basic overclock to begin with. It just doesn't make any sense.

But then again, a lot of things back then happened that didn't make much sense 😜 Those were crazy times in a way and quite spectacular and fluid compared to these days.