Unreleased 3Dfx Voodoo 5 6000 hits eBay, already bid beyond $12K

Shawn Knight

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Recap: 3Dfx was a pioneer in personal computer graphics. The San Jose-based company got its start in the mid-90s making hardware for arcade machines before turning its attention to personal computers and plotting a new course for PC games with its powerful Voodoo chipsets.

The rise was swift and brief. The first 3Dfx Voodoo cards arrived in late 1996 and just five years later, Nvidia scooped up most of the firm's assets. As a result, several of 3Dfx's late-stage offerings never made it to market including the legendary Voodoo 5 6000.

It is rumored that only around 1,000 examples of the Voodoo 5 6000 were produced for testing purposes. They occasionally pop up on third-party marketplaces or through other collectors channels, although that's becoming a rarer occurrence as time passes.

If you've been looking to add this grail to your collection, now may be the time to do so. An active auction over on eBay from a reputable seller for a reworked Voodoo 5 6000 has a little over six days remaining as of this writing and has already garnered a ton of attention.

According to the item description, the card has been reworked by former 3Dfx engineer Hank Semenec and is fully stable at 8X FSAA. This example is said to be one of the later stage 6K prototypes and thus, many of the bugs present in earlier cards were ironed out before this one was created.

A Stroll Down Memory Lane: Best 3Dfx Glide Games

The Voodoo 5 6000 remains a visual marvel to this day due to its sheer size. The hulking card packs four VSA-100 processors (each with its own cooler) and 128MB of total memory.

Owning this piece of history won't come cheap. As of writing, the auction has amassed nearly 60 bids with the current high bid set at $12,600.

The winner will have a tough decision to make: risk it all and put the card to use as it was intended, or simply admire it sitting on a shelf? What would you do?

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The miniscule size of the heatsinks really shows the difference between then and now.

3DFX did at least predict the size of flagship graphics cards for years to come - the 4090 is about the same size as this (in length)
 
The miniscule size of the heatsinks really shows the difference between then and now.
TDP was around 50 to 60W - pretty nuts for the time. The likes of the GeForce2 GTS and Radeon DDR were about 25 to 30W, if I remember correctly.
 
I really enjoyed gaming with a voodoo card. I can´t remember which version I had, just that it worked on my Powermac G3 for GL Quake and Unreal. Good times. Imagine being able to actually open up a Mac and stick a PCI card in it.
 
I remember just after I had moved out for college and I came to visit and pickup my mail. It was sometime late in the year of 1999 and when I got to my parent's place my step-dad showed me the Voodoo3 3000 he had picked up to put in my younger brother's computer.

I was so envious. I wanted that card for my computer! That was the closest I've gotten to a Voodoo card. Just something about the boxes and the graphics on them that really captured me.
 
Jr high me was too poor to buy Voodoo cards. The only one was able to get was their Banshee card. I remember getting S3D Savage 3D and later Nvidia TNT.
 
The miniscule size of the heatsinks really shows the difference between then and now.

3DFX did at least predict the size of flagship graphics cards for years to come - the 4090 is about the same size as this (in length)

We thought it was totally outrageous and over the top at the time! We all wanted one...
 
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