If I remember right, cooling was actually not all that common on Voodoo2 boards. I have a Creative (single board) and it doesn't have any sort of cooling attached. Certainly I'd always use a case fan in a build with it installed, and it wouldn't be too hard to attach a few heatsinks to it either.

As far as the "best" - over time I've generally heard good things about Diamond, Creative, and of course Obsidian (but you said you DON'T want to spend a lot of money... 🤣 ). Although aside from some of the "specialized" boards (like the Diamond board that has no VGA and is designed as an SLI slave, or the Canopus with TV out) I'm pretty sure they're all pretty much the same reference boards - so I wouldn't expect huge variations (especially if they're going to be run at stock settings; if OC'ing the memory chips can have some influence, and iirc even from the same manufacturer you can get different variations on what memory was used).

I was looking at the Obsidian card that was the 2 voodoos on 1 card for awhile but price aside unless your super desperate to save a pci slot its probably not worth it. now I could be wrong on this but isn't the ram on the obsidian slightly slower as well? 125mhz as opposed to 135mhz? add to that that you need that hard to find Medusa cable and its just not worth the effort even for the "cool" factor.

I've never had any issues with the stock Diamond v2 without any cooling. Ive never heard of the 8mb versions being better then the 12mb ones. usually I hear the opposite.

If you have some in-case air flow a dedicated cooling of the V2s is not required. For the operation i didn't noticed any differences between the cards. For a start I would choose some 12 MB cards with standard design, standard connectors and paired.
There are plenty of brands to choose from, you can have an overview here: http://tdfx.de/ger/grafikkarten_voodoo2.shtml

Skrill is hardly sketchy. They used to be known as Moneybookers and are one of the most respected payment processors, though most of their customers do tend to be Europeans. European sellers would be more likely to prefer this over Paypal.

I'm also on the lookout for another 12MB Monster 3D II. I have two, but one has faulty memory so I can only do SLI up to 800 x 600. They aren't cheap anymore that's for sure. But you need to know that they are only going up in price. So when you see a fair deal you should just grab it. In a few years they will go for double.

I'd say Diamond V2s are among the best Voodoo 2 cards. Unlike cheaper cards, they use "100Mhz" 25 ns RAM chips, which is great for overclocking. They also have no tall conponents on the PCB, so you can attach whatever large heatsink you like.

RacoonRider wrote:

I'd say Diamond V2s are among the best Voodoo 2 cards. Unlike cheaper cards, they use "100Mhz" 25 ns RAM chips, which is great for overclocking. They also have no tall conponents on the PCB, so you can attach whatever large heatsink you like.

But 25 ns 100mhz edo ram is standard for voodoo2 cards. Only a subpar brand would have made boards with 90 mhz chips just to save a few pennies. What is more uncommon to see are cards with the 110/120mhz ram, or cards that have one kind or both mixed with standard 100mhz chips

BTW: to the OP, I have a pair of STB Black Magic cards with those same coolers that I paid $30 plus shipping for the set and that was over 3 years ago so if you can get a pair with those coolers for $35 today, you should go for it because those coolers are really hard to find now. The only time I've ever seen them for sale was attached to cards, not loose, so you won't be able to find them later if you buy a V2 without it.

I think another question to ask as well is what system should one use for the "ideal" Voodoo 2 SLI configuration?

I know this has been discussed in other topics, but I thought that maybe some can provide some insight on this, in this thread as well since it's related and maybe someone knows of specific cards that run better (cooler) in certain systems. For example, would an ATI card be able to handle running in a PII system instead of a 486 system or P1 system better over another brand of V2 card?

I do think that a Pentium 1-P166MMX would be a good candidate for the 2 Voodoo II ATI Monsters I own...good balance of speed, compatibility and I don't think they would get too hot.

subhuman@xgtx wrote:

RacoonRider wrote:

I'd say Diamond V2s are among the best Voodoo 2 cards. Unlike cheaper cards, they use "100Mhz" 25 ns RAM chips, which is great for overclocking. They also have no tall conponents on the PCB, so you can attach whatever large heatsink you like.

But 25 ns 100mhz edo ram is standard for voodoo2 cards. Only a subpar brand would have made boards with 90 mhz chips just to save a few pennies. What is more uncommon to see are cards with the 110/120mhz ram, or cards that have one kind or both mixed with standard 100mhz chips

ah, so the RAM on the green Obsidian cards is faster then a standard V2 card. if only you didn't need those damn Medusa cables...that and the insane price.

soviet conscript wrote:

subhuman@xgtx wrote:

RacoonRider wrote:

I'd say Diamond V2s are among the best Voodoo 2 cards. Unlike cheaper cards, they use "100Mhz" 25 ns RAM chips, which is great for overclocking. They also have no tall conponents on the PCB, so you can attach whatever large heatsink you like.

But 25 ns 100mhz edo ram is standard for voodoo2 cards. Only a subpar brand would have made boards with 90 mhz chips just to save a few pennies. What is more uncommon to see are cards with the 110/120mhz ram, or cards that have one kind or both mixed with standard 100mhz chips

ah, so the RAM on the green Obsidian cards is faster then a standard V2 card. if only you didn't need those damn Medusa cables...that and the insane price.

Dodge Garage says there's two versions - the original 200SB with slower memory, and 200 SBi which improved on that and apparently has better cooling too. http://www.thedodgegarage.com/3dfx/q3d_obsidian2.htm

As far as the ideal system goes: isn't CPU power a big deal for keeping Voodoo2's happy? I mean sure, a CPU from around that 1997-1998 timeframe is most "accurate" but wouldn't they benefit from a Pentium III at 1GHz or something like that? Dodge used a 1GHz for their big bench: http://www.thedodgegarage.com/3dfx/bench.htm and have Voodoo2 in SLI performing very well (in some cases on par or better than the GF2). 😀

Since they're PCI cards you can probably put them in even more powerful systems, if you wanted; the only limitation is probably OS capability (some of the newest AMD/Intel boards won't support WindowsXP or Windows98, but honestly I doubt Voodoo2 SLI needs the 8-core AMD at 5GHz to run GL Quake or Turok 🤣).

soviet conscript wrote:

subhuman@xgtx wrote:

RacoonRider wrote:

I'd say Diamond V2s are among the best Voodoo 2 cards. Unlike cheaper cards, they use "100Mhz" 25 ns RAM chips, which is great for overclocking. They also have no tall conponents on the PCB, so you can attach whatever large heatsink you like.

But 25 ns 100mhz edo ram is standard for voodoo2 cards. Only a subpar brand would have made boards with 90 mhz chips just to save a few pennies. What is more uncommon to see are cards with the 110/120mhz ram, or cards that have one kind or both mixed with standard 100mhz chips

ah, so the RAM on the green Obsidian cards is faster then a standard V2 card. if only you didn't need those damn Medusa cables...that and the insane price.

I have the Quantum3D Obsidian2 200SBi on both the green and black boards. 😀

I have three pairs of 12mb Voodoo II cards: Canopus, Diamond, and Creative.

Back in the day, I paid through the nose and actually purchased a new pair of Canopus Pure3D II cards and ran them in SLI. After upgrading to a Voodoo 3, I sold them on eBay and suffered "seller's regret" shortly afterwards. I then purchased another used pair on eBay. In hindsight, this was a really good idea. Nowadays, even when you can find a Pure3D II card for sale they are quite costly. They also use a proprietary VGA pass-through cable that other Voodoo II cards do not. I haven't used them in awhile and I keep them in a box in my closet. I'm very hesitant to sell them because I know I'll never find another set like them again.

My Diamond cards are in use and work well. I purchased these used on eBay shortly after the Pure3D II cards back in the late 90s. Back when TennMax was still selling their Stealth coolers, I considered purchasing a set. However, I didn't like the high cost or that the fans on them don't seem to be easily replaceable. There are also no passive cooling fins on the other parts of that Stealth cooler. Instead, I attached some heatsinks to the cards using Arctic Silver thermal epoxy. I don't overclock the cards or anything, so I hope that maybe the small heatsinks will extend the usable life of the cards.

My Creative cards are in rough shape. I purchased these on eBay about three years ago when you could still get a Voodoo II card for about $20-$30. One of them arrived smelling like mold and looking like it had survived a flood. The other had nasty scratches all over it and looked like it had spent a lot of time in the bottom of a box with other cards. I was pleasantly surprised when they both proved to work just fine. I also attached some heatsinks to these cards to prolong their lives, but they look real ugly.

Of the three sets, only the Canopus Pure3D II cards came with fans installed on them. The Diamond and Creative cards did not. As far as I know, the Canopus cards were the only ones to include active cooling right out of the box.

I'm sure that Voodoo II cards will work just fine without any fans or heatsinks as long as there is some airflow in your PC case and you aren't overclocking. Still, unless you're keeping them as part of a collection, why not attach some passive heatsinks and keep 'em a bit cooler? It's cheap, easy, and might actually help a bit.

There are so many options on eBay for passive heatsinks. This one looks good, for example. You'll want three of those per card, though. At $3.99 each, that's gonna cost you about $24 to cover both cards.

Here's what I used for my ghetto Creative SLI setup: Small RAM heatsinks, blue or silver, 8 per package for $2. You'll attach four of these per chip, for a total cost of $6. It's real ugly, but it works.

I'd really like to find a pair of 12mb Orchid Righteous 3D II cards, but I don't see them for sale very often. Diamond, Creative, and STB seem to be the ones I see most frequently. All of them are pretty much the same, except the Canopus cards that deviate from the reference design.

My ideal Voodoo II setup would be a pair of Canopus Pure3D II with passive heatsinks and a Spectra 2500 primary VGA adapter. There is no need for an external pass-through cable in this configuration and VGA signal suffers no degradation. However, you would need to permanently deface the voodoo cards to achieve this. For such a rare card, I can't bring myself to do it. The Spectra 2500 is also somewhat hard to obtain. I wouldn't bother with this configuration in anything faster than a 1ghz coppermine. I also wouldn't bother with my "ideal" Voodoo II setup because it's impractical and there are better options for legacy gaming. For any CPU up to 1ghz, I would just use a Voodoo 3. The performance is better, it's a simpler setup, and it only uses a single slot. It is also substantially cheaper to just buy a single Voodoo 3 card. For any faster CPU, I would use a GF3 Ti500 or GF4 Ti4600 as primary vga and SLI Voodoo IIs for GLIDE compatibility.

retrofanatic wrote:

I think another question to ask as well is what system should one use for the "ideal" Voodoo 2 SLI configuration?

A regular Voodoo scales with a Pentium from 100 to 200 MHz. So a Voodoo 2 definitely needs something faster. A Pentium III is a good platform, for SLI a high clock speed, like 700 - 1000 MHz should do the trick.

I know from experience someone on ebay i used to buy parts for work from india used skrill also for payments.
Do not worry to much about it, and sometimes you have to take a risk, and 35dollar is doable.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

retrofanatic wrote:

I think another question to ask as well is what system should one use for the "ideal" Voodoo 2 SLI configuration?

A regular Voodoo scales with a Pentium from 100 to 200 MHz. So a Voodoo 2 definitely needs something faster. A Pentium III is a good platform, for SLI a high clock speed, like 700 - 1000 MHz should do the trick.

Let's not forget about the SS7 platform with a nice K6-III+ 400/500 (or overclocked) in there. I'm running that with 2 x Diamond 12MB V2's and it works very well!

My cooling solution for V2 - 100x65,5x15mm cooler used in audio equipment. Worth $4 for two. It has a huge surface for good heat exchange, you can also mount one or even two 50x50 FANs on each.

RacoonRider wrote:

My cooling solution for V2 - 100x65,5x15mm cooler used in audio equipment. Worth $4 for two. It has a huge surface for good heat […]
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My cooling solution for V2 - 100x65,5x15mm cooler used in audio equipment. Worth $4 for two. It has a huge surface for good heat exchange, you can also mount one or even two 50x50 FANs on each.

Great idea. Perhaps not as elegant as the tennmax cooler, but surely better.

Did it come with thermal tape or similar?

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

retrofanatic wrote:

I think another question to ask as well is what system should one use for the "ideal" Voodoo 2 SLI configuration?

A regular Voodoo scales with a Pentium from 100 to 200 MHz. So a Voodoo 2 definitely needs something faster. A Pentium III is a good platform, for SLI a high clock speed, like 700 - 1000 MHz should do the trick.

A Pentium II isn't strong enough for a Voodoo 2 SLI setup?