Yes, a fan is recommended even for a V3 2000. Try touching it after a good gaming session and you'll understand. Also these cards are now old and also expensive to replace.

I go for a non invasive / non permanent solution. Like the one here (mine is single slot / single fan):

Seeing that the Banshee and 2000 came with a 40mm heatsink, a simple 40mm fan will suffice. You may have issues with 3-pin variants not having long enough cables to reach the 3-pin/PWM headers on your motherboard.

It's a very popular topic. I've never added anything to a Voodoo3. Most of them came passively cooled. I would just recommend having a case fan moving air across all the expansion cards.

Less heat = less chip stress during heating/cooling cycle = more longevity. This hardware is 24 years old and 3dfx did a shitty minimal effort job. Especially on V3 3500.

I use a fan on both my Voodoo 3 3000 and my PCI 2000.
Cheap and easy insurance to (hopefully) prolong life.

Definitely, just use rubber bands to attach, anything is better than nothing in this case.

For any Vooodoo, I would strongly advice to use some kind of cooling fan. If you have enough space below the card, something like aaronkatrini showed is the best. You can keep the card in its original state without modifications and still keep it nice and cool.

Also in case of V3 PCI pay attention to the VRM circuit in the top left or top right corner (depends on the SDR/SGR PCB type), it tends to get extremely hot without some airflow.

I had one of these back then. The old cases had so little airflow and I was obsessed with overclocking whatever I had. Probably a Matrox G400 at that time. I even attached a Peltier cooler to it at one point.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010625115456/ht … ions/index.html
http://www.dansdata.com/2coolpc.htm

aaronkatrini wrote on 2023-05-13, 18:03:

Yes, a fan is recommended even for a V3 2000. Try touching it after a good gaming session and you'll understand.

Just because it is hot to touch does not mean it is dangerous.

Putas wrote on 2023-05-16, 06:51:

aaronkatrini wrote on 2023-05-13, 18:03:

Yes, a fan is recommended even for a V3 2000. Try touching it after a good gaming session and you'll understand.

Just because it is hot to touch does not mean it is dangerous.

Possibly not. But to put it another way, can you think of a scenario where keeping a gpu near its thermal limit prolongs its life?

JayAlien wrote on 2023-05-17, 03:28:

Putas wrote on 2023-05-16, 06:51:

aaronkatrini wrote on 2023-05-13, 18:03:

Yes, a fan is recommended even for a V3 2000. Try touching it after a good gaming session and you'll understand.

Just because it is hot to touch does not mean it is dangerous.

Possibly not. But to put it another way, can you think of a scenario where keeping a gpu near its thermal limit prolongs its life?

What is the termal limit of Voodoo3?

Putas wrote on 2023-05-17, 05:33:

What is the termal limit of Voodoo3?

Don't think that it's known/public, but let's be generous and assume that the max safe operating temperature is ~ 90C (though, it's likely lower than that).

First of all, the core itself can easily hit 90C in a bad case with poor airflow. I've measured it myself, on the back of the PCB, right behind the core. And if the back is at 80 - 90C, you can imagine that the internal temperature is quite a bit higher.

Second of all, this 'max safe operating temperature' is not necessarily safe for all eternity. When they evaluate these things, they certainly don't assume that their product might be used 24 years down the road. It's probably more like "how likely is it to fail if it operates at 90C, 24/7, during the limited 3 year warranty?"

Thirdly, it's not even about the silicon die/core itself (which might or might not be fine to run at 90C for extended periods of time). However, those old BGA solder joints are subjected to a lot of stress with each new thermal cycle, which inevitably leads to solder cracks - and this IS a fact.

All in all, improving the cooling will certainly not hurt in any way, and if you actually plan to use the card extensively, it will undoubtedly prolong its life.

bloodem wrote on 2023-05-17, 06:35:

All in all, improving the cooling will certainly not hurt in any way, and if you actually plan to use the card extensively, it will undoubtedly prolong its life.

This I agree with.
But fact also is there were cards built for 120°C, so I would not stress about cards renowned for their reliability running at 90°C under conditions which were common at the time.

1 Fans are inexpensive
2 Voodoo cards are becoming less common
3 thermal cycling and high temps damage electronics over time

I added a fan to my v3 3000.
I also know a guy who tells me seatbelts are useless as he’s still alive and has never used one. 😉

ubertrout wrote on 2023-05-13, 16:10:

Pretty straightforward - I'm using one in a P2 Dell Dimension case and it's running fine, but does the PCI 2000 model benefit from a fan, or is it really needed more from the higher clocked models?

The slower models typically have smaller heatsinks. The PCI ones seem to require more cooling than the AGP ones.
I've seen people strap fans onto the Voodoo 3 in various ways. Since fans are cheap, I'd recommend to (at the very least) use a case that has relatively good cooling for the expansion cards (think well placed fan in the side panel and/or a front intake fan in combination with a fan below the Voodoo aiming air upwards).
Also things like location, orientation and CFM of the exhaust fans may help with cooling the top part of the PCB to some degree (and will help with keeping the insides of the case cooler).

If you add a fan directly to the Voodoo, you really will need to have some (rudimentary) case cooling or your Voodoo will feel more like it's in an oven.

The old beige first gen ATX cases are typically not well suited for air ventilation (or at least not without some work).
Modern cases look kinda ugly for a glide rig (imo of course), but have better cooling.

These cards were really not easy to cook to death back in the day (there weren't a ton of returns with all these Voodoos used in cases with kinda crappy cooling), but these are old cards now, so I'd definitely give the cooling of these cards some extra thoughts as this may prolong their life (but don't overdo it as physical stress and buildup of ESD damage may actually end up killing your card before damage caused by heat and thermal cycling do).

JayAlien wrote on 2023-05-17, 16:16:

I also know a guy who tells me seatbelts are useless as he’s still alive and has never used one. 😉

Don't forget about the guy who's grandfather smoked 5 packs a day for 95 years like a chimney and he never got cancer, so smoking can't be as bad as everybody is making it out to be, right? 😜

I have recently installed a small cooler/heatsink combo, since mine came with a super small passive heatsink... My aim was to install some type of cooling solution, but at the same time insisted to still have space underneath, if I wish to install other PCI expansion card...

Thanks for all the comments - I put one in, even spent a few extra bucks for one off eBay with a cool 3dfx logo on it. You're all correct that it's a better safe than sorry consideration.

Even if someone doesn't want a fan for the voodoo card itself, I'd be worried about all the other cards and hardware in my retro computers. I'm definitely looking into better cooling options for my retro machines in general.