The 3500 will not be shipping for a while yet but the 166MHz version (the 3000) and the 143MHz version (the 2000) are much more successful in terms of yields and thus closer to being released. The focus of this article is the Voodoo3 2000 AGP, which will be pitched to entry level end users as a low cost 2D/3D solution. Not long after you read this, the Voodoo3 2000 AGP will actually be available for purchase and hence we've been given a full retail version (a Rev. B) for review purposes. The board itself (pictured below) is actually straight off of STB's FAB line in Mexico and not a 'pre-production' board from 3dfx. A PCI version of the 2000 will also be available, which we'll test for you at a later date.

For those of you that are either new to the Web, 3D cards, or just fallen into a state of amnesia let us briefly explain what the Voodoo3 is and where it came from (in true Blind Date fashion). Last year 3dfx came out with the Voodoo Banshee chip, which combined both 2D and 3D architecture on to one single chip. The only problem was that 3dfx (then 3Dfx) aimed a little low by 'limiting' the Voodoo Banshee's 3D architecture. They failed to include single pass multi texturing capabilities, which in turn meant that Quake 2-style games that run markedly better under multi texturing (e.g. the Voodoo2), were not performing as well with a Banshee. It left gamers and 3dfx loyalists dissatisfied (although it did do rather well for 3dfx's OEM reputation). The low clock speeds (usually around the 90-100MHz mark) and the failure at that point to shrink the die from .35micron to .25micron didn't help matters either. Alas, with the 128-bit Voodoo3, 3dfx has 'corrected' some of the criticisms that were directed at them. The Voodoo3 chip (sometimes dubbed the Banshee2) has a markedly similar architecture but has been shrunk from .35micron down to .25micron and as a result its clock speeds can also be set far higher. It only took FAB 4 of the TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) 19 days to mask and fabricate the first round of .25micron five-metal layer processed Voodoo3 silicon (with its 8.2million transistors). More importantly though, Quake 2 loyalists will be happy in the knowledge that single pass multi-texturing was once again given the go ahead by the marketing bods at 3dfx. The benefits are clear- faster clock speeds and multitexturing has meant that the Voodoo3 architecture is fairly close to being a Voodoo2 SLI performer (it's actually slightly faster at the 183MHz speeds).