Never had anything other than a Voodoo 3 and I always paired them with AMD K6-2 systems. For a PIII, a GeForce 2 (or 3 or 4) is a much better option.

If I had or was getting a Voodoo 5, personally I'd be aiming for a PIII build, thinking pre-1GHz Coppermine. 1GHz or above PIII I'd stay with a GeForce 2 at the very least.

I would use a banshee on the K6 rig.
My via c3 800mhz + banshee is a mice combo.

I'd use a single V2 12MB or a V3 (if found for a good price) on any K6. Lower clocked models are probably on the limit with a Banshee, but it'll depend on the game.

I use my Voodoo5 with a Via C3 at 1466MHz on a QDI Advance10T board, it works pretty well for my needs, even though it is somewhat wasted. But yeah, V5 is an oddball. The C3 at those frequencies is roughly equal to or perhaps slightly faster than a PIII 733 when it comes to 3D games.

I use a Elsa Victory II Voodoo Banshee AGP @ 120 MHZ Core and 125 MHZ Memory with my K6-III+ 550 MHz.

A PIII-S 1400 MHz Tualatin is a very nice CPU for the Voodoo 5 5500 AGP.

Doornkaat wrote on 2020-12-12, 09:17:

Sorry to hear that. Sounds like very bad luck to me. I have more than twenty 3dfx cards and only two have (had) problems, both contact issues due to mechanical damage. One is already repaired, the other is still waiting for reflowing.
The transistor on PCI V3s gets scorchingly hot though. In my experience even a slight bit of turbulence over the transistor's heatsink is enough to keep temperatures well within spec though.
Btw: You said the transistor damaged a chunk of the pcb when exploding - the heatsink between the transistor and PCB should have been enough to protect the PCB from an exploding transistor. The thermal mass of that heatsink and its dissipation capabilities should also be sufficient to protect the pcb from the heat generated during a typical transistor burn out. Is it possible your card was missing the heatsink? That could have caused the transistor to overheat in the first place. That heatsink is absolutely necessary!

It did have the default heatsink found on all Voodoo 3 PCI cards, but many traces still got scorched and the PCB almost melted around it - the heat seems to have been extreme, it was not the usual 'burnt MOSFET event' (which is generally not that dramatic). I'll try and find it to take a picture, it looks extremely bad (so bad that I didn't even bother trying to repair it).

Doornkaat wrote on 2020-12-12, 09:17:

No, you're right: The Voodoo 5500 isn't that great of a card, especially considering a GF 4200 Ti runs circles around it and is still widely avaliable for reasonable prices. OpenGL or Direct3D games? Forget about Voodoo 5500.
But if you want to play Glide games at maximum frame rates on real hardware there isn't really anything better avaliable. (apart from unobtanium) So if you're aiming for maximum fps why limit yourself to a slower CPU than necessary? Especially if you can run a low voltage Athlon XP-M in many KT333 boards, giving you a powerful Win9x system at low TDP.

Fair enough... but truthfully, I don't know of any Glide exclusive games that support very high resolutions so that they would be able to take advantage of a Voodoo 5 (there might be some, though). Many people are using Unreal as an example, but let's be honest - even though Unreal used to have a broken & slow Direct3D implementation, it was eventually fixed (well, the performance part was mostly 'fixed' once CPUs and GPUs got much faster). Yes, in 1998 - 1999 it ran GREAT on 3dfx hardware, but years later that all changed. Nowadays, Unreal runs and looks much better on a GeForce 4 / FX. 😀

bloodem wrote on 2020-12-12, 15:21:

It did have the default heatsink found on all Voodoo 3 PCI cards, but many traces still got scorched and the PCB almost melted around it - the heat seems to have been extreme, it was not the usual 'burnt MOSFET event' (which is generally not that dramatic). I'll try and find it to take a picture, it looks extremely bad (so bad that I didn't even bother trying to repair it).

Wow, that sounds pretty bad. I'm kind of curious to see those gory pics though. 😅

Fair enough... but truthfully, I don't know of any Glide exclusive games that support very high resolutions so that they would be able to take advantage of a Voodoo 5 (there might be some, though). Many people are using Unreal as an example, but let's be honest - even though Unreal used to have a broken & slow Direct3D implementation, it was eventually fixed (well, the performance part was mostly 'fixed' once CPUs and GPUs got much faster). Yes, in 1998 - 1999 it ran GREAT on 3dfx hardware, but years later that all changed. Nowadays, Unreal runs and looks much better on a GeForce 4 / FX. 😀

No argument here, dude. I'm not making a case for the absolute need of a Voodoo 5500. I think I'm just looking at the matter from a different perspective:
My argument is that when I use my V5500 I want the most performance out of it. (And you'd probably say I'm wasting a fast system on it.)
At the same time I believe your argument is that the card had a historical value in enabling better frame rates than its competitors on otherwise weaker systems. (And I'd say the V5500 is wasted because today you can just get a faster system.)
Imho both our opinions are 100% valid though. It's just a different idea of what the V5500 is good for nowadays.

I guess one of the few games that profit from having a V5500 would be Diablo II. IF you want to use real hardware instead of a DX9 wrapper.

Doornkaat wrote on 2020-12-12, 17:00:

No argument here, dude. I'm not making a case for the absolute need of a Voodoo 5500. I think I'm just looking at the matter fro […]
Show full quote

No argument here, dude. I'm not making a case for the absolute need of a Voodoo 5500. I think I'm just looking at the matter from a different perspective:
My argument is that when I use my V5500 I want the most performance out of it. (And you'd probably say I'm wasting a fast system on it.)
At the same time I believe your argument is that the card had a historical value in enabling better frame rates than its competitors on otherwise weaker systems. (And I'd say the V5500 is wasted because today you can just get a faster system.)
Imho both our opinions are 100% valid though. It's just a different idea of what the V5500 is good for nowadays.

I guess one of the few games that profit from having a V5500 would be Diablo II. IF you want to use real hardware instead of a DX9 wrapper.

We're pretty much on the same page! 😁
To me the Voodoo 5 5500 has a great historical value (one last attempt by 3dfx to stay afloat), but functionally, I didn't care about it too much 20 years ago, and I certaintly don't care about it today. On the other hand, I will always love the earlier Voodoo cards (particularly the Voodoo 1 / 2, but also the Voodoo 3), because I saw what they could do (and how they could revitalize an otherwise slow computer), but still could not afford them... which is probably why I now have so many 😁
But don't get me wrong, I do love my Voodoo 5 5500, and if I ever find another one for a decent price I will buy it for sure! 😀