As promised we're updating our Voodoo3 Overclocking Guide after having gotten in a couple of spare Voodoo3s to do some more extensive testing. The two boards in question are the Voodoo3 2000 and the Voodoo3 3000. Both are retail versions and both are currently available for purchase.

So are these retail boards overclockable then? In a word YES. Do the boards get hot enough to frazzle the skin off of your fingers? Oh yes… Is it worth it? We certainly think so (overclocking and not burning your skin- we don't condone that). The benchmarks conducted on the Voodoo3 2000 certainly showed that even without cooling one can 'safely' (we say 'safely' because 3dfx does not condone or encourage the use of freeze spray or overclocking blah blah) overclock as high as 175MHz. And at the 166MHz frequency one could VERY easily mistake the board for a 3000 since the benchmarks were identical (using the same drivers of course). And when going as high as 175MHz, you one starts to realize that the board is not all that far away from the 183MHz proposed for the 3500. Most of all, the testing shows that if you're unwilling to pay for the pricier 166MHz version of the Voodoo3 (the 3000), then you don't necessarily have to spend the extra $50- here's a good excuse for you. That's if you don't really want a software bundle either… And if you're prepared to take a few risks.

Any problems? No not really. If you are willing to accept the odd graphical glitches and discrepancy at 1600x1200 then you'll be fine and in good hands. Of course the likelihood of any of you using a Voodoo3 2000 or 3000 at 1600x1200 is highly unlikely anyway. The speeds listen in the table/graph all worked happily and there were no instances of crashes. We did indeed go as high as 180MHz (without any additional cooling we might add) but this is where overheating problems began occurring- random crashes and image problems. Therefor we'd reckon 175MHz is a good place to put a full stop. At this frequency the 2000 worked for two days solid.