konc wrote on 2023-06-16, 07:08:

Wait, wasn't the card sold for something like 15K? How did it travel the world for a promotion campaign and then is for sale again by the same person?

seems the deal fell through, according to the video

maybe the buyer got confused and thought they were bidding on a 5 year old car with only 6000 miles or something actually worth $15k...

gerry wrote on 2023-06-16, 08:29:

konc wrote on 2023-06-16, 07:08:

Wait, wasn't the card sold for something like 15K? How did it travel the world for a promotion campaign and then is for sale again by the same person?

seems the deal fell through, according to the video

maybe the buyer got confused and thought they were bidding on a 5 year old car with only 6000 miles or something actually worth $15k...

I see, I thought that the card reached Linus through the new owner, apparently that wasn't the case. Which makes me think which side backed off.

For 2000 or 3000$ max ... with not (such a special trip), but 15.000$ 😳

What I just noticed, the original one was listed as being in excellent condition, this one is for parts, not working.

So they bricked it and now it's going for the usual "AS-IS = not working and never will" rate.
"This card had been tested, however due to it's age and in order to protect myself against fraudulent schemes I have to sell AS IS, with no warranty"
I'd be extremely surprised if the buyer would get a working card.

Mandrew wrote on 2023-06-19, 08:38:

So they bricked it and now it's going for the usual "AS-IS = not working and never will" rate.
"This card had been tested, however due to it's age and in order to protect myself against fraudulent schemes I have to sell AS IS, with no warranty"
I'd be extremely surprised if the buyer would get a working card.

I would say that it's most likely working (it was also extensively tested on LTT, and there were no signs of issues).
Frankly, if it were me, I would also sell it as "for parts or not working", just to avoid potential headaches (well, I mean, I would NEVER sell this card if it were mine, but you get my point 😜 ).

bloodem wrote on 2023-06-19, 08:50:

Mandrew wrote on 2023-06-19, 08:38:

So they bricked it and now it's going for the usual "AS-IS = not working and never will" rate.
"This card had been tested, however due to it's age and in order to protect myself against fraudulent schemes I have to sell AS IS, with no warranty"
I'd be extremely surprised if the buyer would get a working card.

I would say that it's most likely working (it was also extensively tested on LTT, and there were no signs of issues).
Frankly, if it were me, I would also sell it as "for parts or not working", just to avoid potential headaches (well, I mean, I would NEVER sell this card if it were mine, but you get my point 😜 ).

I absolutely would sell it without a second thought. I'm not so much a hardware collector, not very much into Voodoo cards either and as long as there are people willing to pay the price of a couple of years old economy car for one, I'm willing to accept it.

bloodem wrote on 2023-06-19, 08:50:

I would say that it's most likely working (it was also extensively tested on LTT, and there were no signs of issues).
Frankly, if it were me, I would also sell it as "for parts or not working", just to avoid potential headaches (well, I mean, I would NEVER sell this card if it were mine, but you get my point 😜 ).

It's 50/50 but at that price I'd like to see at least a video of it installed and running Q3A or something. I'm major paranoid when I see AS-IS and zero warranty/returns.
It's okay to sell some everyday $20 card and claim that it's untested but not a fking $5K-15K V56K. Just IMO. Imagine getting a $10K card just to find out that it's dead.
At least show us a date coded video that it's fine at that moment.

Mandrew wrote on 2023-06-19, 09:02:

It's 50/50 but at that price I'd like to see at least a video of it installed and running Q3A or something. I'm major paranoid when I see AS-IS and zero warranty/returns.
It's okay to sell some everyday $20 card and claim that it's untested but not a fking $5K-15K V56K. Just IMO. Imagine getting a $10K card just to find out that it's dead.
At least show us a date coded video that it's fine at that moment.

I would generally agree with that, however this is a special case.
People who buy this card don't really care about any of that (and I wouldn't either). I would repair it myself, or - worst case scenario - send it to Oskhar and he'd fix it for 500 - $1000.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-06-19, 08:57:

I absolutely would sell it without a second thought. I'm not so much a hardware collector, not very much into Voodoo cards either and as long as there are people willing to pay the price of a couple of years old economy car for one, I'm willing to accept it.

When it comes to actually using them, I'm not into Voodoo cards either (in fact, I have 2 x Voodoo 5 5500 cards that have barely seen any use in the past years). But i would still LOVE to own the Voodoo 5 6000 (not sure how to explain it other than the fact that... I'm most likely insane 🤣 )

bloodem wrote on 2023-06-19, 09:07:

I would generally agree with that, however this is a special case.
People who buy this card don't really care about any of that (and I wouldn't either). I would repair it myself, or - worst case scenario - send it to Oskhar and he'd fix it for 500 - $1000.

Probably true, I'm just allergic to getting items DOA and having to deal with the hassle of fixing it myself. Holding a dead V56K would feel like someone hit me over the head with a baseball bat and told me to get over it. 🤣 I always get that feeling when I buy something and it just refuses to work. Like expecting a PS5 for Christmas and getting a Nintendo classic mini with 500 preinstalled crappy games instead.

Mandrew wrote on 2023-06-19, 09:17:

bloodem wrote on 2023-06-19, 09:07:

I would generally agree with that, however this is a special case.
People who buy this card don't really care about any of that (and I wouldn't either). I would repair it myself, or - worst case scenario - send it to Oskhar and he'd fix it for 500 - $1000.

Probably true, I'm just allergic to getting items DOA and having to deal with the hassle of fixing it myself. Holding a dead V56K would feel like someone hit me over the head with a baseball bat and told me to get over it. 🤣 I always get that feeling when I buy something and it just refuses to work. Like expecting a PS5 for Christmas and getting a Nintendo classic mini with 500 preinstalled crappy games instead.

Thankfully this one is working and has already been repaired and tested by Oskar and LTT, the "As Is" tag is simply to stop the evil bay fraudsters, there is zero reason to believe that this particular card is dead or will be DOA.

All of this aside, I wouldn't actually buy this card to use it, it would be going into a nice perspex environmentally controlled storage case to be put on display, its a historical piece not a use and abuse piece, and even if it was damaged sending it to Oskar is all you would need to do to get it working again.

If you do want a V5 6k in fully working daily use condition then you can buy a new reverse engineered model for ~2k that even comes in PCIe, there is also new Voodoo 5 5500 cards available too. (3DFX for sure made a fuck ton of spare VSA100 chips and the rest of the components are off the shelf parts)

Not every seller on eBay is out to screw you over and there are a good number of good and reputable retro hardware guys on there just looking to shift their parts to other like minded people. Try not to be so jaded, sometimes just talking to the seller will quickly tell you which is which and can even lead to good deals.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-06-19, 08:57:

I absolutely would sell it without a second thought. I'm not so much a hardware collector, not very much into Voodoo cards either and as long as there are people willing to pay the price of a couple of years old economy car for one, I'm willing to accept it.

I would too, even at the 5,300 above its easily worth more than my entire computing collection (including any non PC devices!)

i'm ok with people collecting things because they like it and have money, but i don't really think this item is even that interesting or 'important' to be honest

gerry wrote on 2023-06-19, 11:11:

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-06-19, 08:57:

I absolutely would sell it without a second thought. I'm not so much a hardware collector, not very much into Voodoo cards either and as long as there are people willing to pay the price of a couple of years old economy car for one, I'm willing to accept it.

I would too, even at the 5,300 above its easily worth more than my entire computing collection (including any non PC devices!)

i'm ok with people collecting things because they like it and have money, but i don't really think this item is even that interesting or 'important' to be honest

Interesting and Important are both subjective 🤣

The right people will find it both, a few will simply want it because of its rarity and for no other reason than to prevent others from having it, much like a trophy no one else has. (Not that this is true for this card but working late model V5 6k cards would be exceptionally rare)

Me I find it interesting from a technical standpoint, it attempted something no other company had tried before, 4 GPU dies on the one PCB, it was quite a hardware puzzle that even today many fabs would find difficult to work around, I have a ATi RAGE Fury MAXX for the simple reason it too was a technical nightmare of a card a nightmare that ATI never quite ironed out all the bugs with till the advent of Xfire and newer hardware.

That card cost me more than my Voodoo 5 5500 did and I consider it far more interesting and collectable due to its nightmare weirdness.

Still I wouldn't suggest anyone go out and buy a Rage Fury MAXX or a Voodoo 5 6000.

What was the maximum number of VSA100 chips that could theoretically be on one card together? If that is a known data...I suspect that there is a diminishing return for having lots of chips due to inter-chip communication.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-06-19, 12:07:

What was the maximum number of VSA100 chips that could theoretically be on one card together? If that is a known data...I suspect that there is a diminishing return for having lots of chips due to inter-chip communication.

4 was quite a challenge and IIRC they never fully resolved all the issues, my guess is that all the chips communicate with each other over the AGP bus which would be why windows also sees it as 4 separate cards rather than just one single card. Since they share the bus I guess the limitation is really down to how much bandwidth is available for each GPU before it starts causing performance loss or slow downs due to chip to chip communication and Vram data issues.

I'm wrong about them communicating via the AGP bus, http://www.x86-secret.com/articles/divers/v5- … 00/v56kgb-6.htm explains it in detail where each VSA has its own PCI to PCI bus that is used for interchip communication and one of the 4 is the master chip which is the only one visible to the system, the whole thing is then tied together using the hint bridge chip which only supports 4 PCI devices. I guess the maximum then become how many hint bridges can be put on one card and can multiple hint bridge chips communicate with each other?

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-19, 10:00:

Not every seller on eBay is out to screw you over and there are a good number of good and reputable retro hardware guys on there just looking to shift their parts to other like minded people. Try not to be so jaded, sometimes just talking to the seller will quickly tell you which is which and can even lead to good deals.

Agreed, I got burned a few times so my childlike innocence is completely gone. When I see scammers everywhere it's a good sign to step back and take a little break from all this and do something else.
All that aside, I just got burned by a reputable seller with thousands of sales and a 100% feedback. The tracking didn't work, he didn't respond to my mail to check it out, he didn't respond when the ETA was 2 weeks overdue, didn't respond when I opened INR and asked again to check if it's lost or something and I had to ask Ebay to step in an give me the money back. Zero communication after almost 2 months of waiting for a $15 package shipped within the EU. I don't care about that $15, I wanted the product and never thought someone would risk a 100% rep over this, but I can't work with someone who doesn't communicate at all.
Whatever, I just wanted to rant about the fact that feedback score doesn't always mean the seller is reliable.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-19, 12:19:

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-06-19, 12:07:

What was the maximum number of VSA100 chips that could theoretically be on one card together? If that is a known data...I suspect that there is a diminishing return for having lots of chips due to inter-chip communication.

4 was quite a challenge and IIRC they never fully resolved all the issues, my guess is that all the chips communicate with each other over the AGP bus which would be why windows also sees it as 4 separate cards rather than just one single card. Since they share the bus I guess the limitation is really down to how much bandwidth is available for each GPU before it starts causing performance loss or slow downs due to chip to chip communication and Vram data issues.

I'm wrong about them communicating via the AGP bus, http://www.x86-secret.com/articles/divers/v5- … 00/v56kgb-6.htm explains it in detail where each VSA has its own PCI to PCI bus that is used for interchip communication and one of the 4 is the master chip which is the only one visible to the system, the whole thing is then tied together using the hint bridge chip which only supports 4 PCI devices. I guess the maximum then become how many hint bridges can be put on one card and can multiple hint bridge chips communicate with each other?

Guess what, this is an article I wrote 18 years ago. Memory fades...these bridges getting fried was the most common death cause for Voodoo 5 6000. Had 2 of them for this (already) retro-review in 2005.

Mandrew wrote on 2023-06-19, 12:41:

Agreed, I got burned a few times so my childlike innocence is completely gone. When I see scammers everywhere it's a good sign t […]
Show full quote

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-19, 10:00:

Not every seller on eBay is out to screw you over and there are a good number of good and reputable retro hardware guys on there just looking to shift their parts to other like minded people. Try not to be so jaded, sometimes just talking to the seller will quickly tell you which is which and can even lead to good deals.

Agreed, I got burned a few times so my childlike innocence is completely gone. When I see scammers everywhere it's a good sign to step back and take a little break from all this and do something else.
All that aside, I just got burned by a reputable seller with thousands of sales and a 100% feedback. The tracking didn't work, he didn't respond to my mail to check it out, he didn't respond when the ETA was 2 weeks overdue, didn't respond when I opened INR and asked again to check if it's lost or something and I had to ask Ebay to step in an give me the money back. Zero communication after almost 2 months of waiting for a $15 package shipped within the EU. I don't care about that $15, I wanted the product and never thought someone would risk a 100% rep over this, but I can't work with someone who doesn't communicate at all.
Whatever, I just wanted to rant about the fact that feedback score doesn't always mean the seller is reliable.

Being a reputable seller I'm willing to give them the benefit of doubt, its possible they could have had something serious happen to them, I remember a time I bought two 1400s Tualatins from a seller, took a month to get a reply even after eBay had refunded me, turns out the seller who was a top guy had died due to a car accident, his wife was the one to message me letting me know what had happened. I had talked to him a number of times previously about retro builds and hardware as he collected and repaired stuff as a hobby, really was a great seller.

Sellers are humans too and if you have no communication its possible something terrible has happened or real life has stepped in and caused them to be unable to manage the store. (Could be anything including natural disasters like floods and fires)

Just keep that in mind before you write a reputable seller off, to me it sounds like something has occurred to that seller .. even the scammers will respond once eBay/Paypal/Bank gets involved at least in my experience.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-06-19, 13:30:

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-19, 12:19:

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-06-19, 12:07:

What was the maximum number of VSA100 chips that could theoretically be on one card together? If that is a known data...I suspect that there is a diminishing return for having lots of chips due to inter-chip communication.

4 was quite a challenge and IIRC they never fully resolved all the issues, my guess is that all the chips communicate with each other over the AGP bus which would be why windows also sees it as 4 separate cards rather than just one single card. Since they share the bus I guess the limitation is really down to how much bandwidth is available for each GPU before it starts causing performance loss or slow downs due to chip to chip communication and Vram data issues.

I'm wrong about them communicating via the AGP bus, http://www.x86-secret.com/articles/divers/v5- … 00/v56kgb-6.htm explains it in detail where each VSA has its own PCI to PCI bus that is used for interchip communication and one of the 4 is the master chip which is the only one visible to the system, the whole thing is then tied together using the hint bridge chip which only supports 4 PCI devices. I guess the maximum then become how many hint bridges can be put on one card and can multiple hint bridge chips communicate with each other?

Guess what, this is an article I wrote 18 years ago. Memory fades...these bridges getting fried was the most common death cause for Voodoo 5 6000. Had 2 of them for this (already) retro-review in 2005.

wow its a small world, its a great article about how the SLI VSA cards work internally, the Fury MAXX communicates between each GPU via the AGP bus as it doesnt have a bridge chip or any interchip pci lanes, its a truly weird card hardware wise and quite amazing ATI even got it work as well as it does.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-19, 14:56:

wow its a small world, its a great article about how the SLI VSA cards work internally, the Fury MAXX communicates between each GPU via the AGP bus as it doesnt have a bridge chip or any interchip pci lanes, its a truly weird card hardware wise and quite amazing ATI even got it work as well as it does.

Which NT kernel (and Linux kernel it seems, XFree86 driver and its kernel mode DRM only seem to support only one chip of the card like NT) NEVER supported. That definitely sealed the fate of the MAXX and its technology when Windows XP became mainstream.