It's certainly been a short haul since Comdex '98, when we were first given the opportunity to demo a .25micron Voodoo3 3000 (it was the first silicon). And although there's been a bit of chopping and changing, we think that this time (with the release of the product being so final) that what you are about to read is indeed what you're going to end up getting (assuming you opt for a Voodoo3). We've been given access to the Press Release mentioned above a little early and also followed up by talking to Michael Howse of 3Dfx. The moral of this story is really about higher yields, a couple of name swaps and a mover and shaker as a result of increased clock speeds (as far as we know the 8.2million transistors have remained to the number).

First things first, the 'low-end' Voodoo3 2000 has had its clock speed increased from 125MHz up to 143MHz and should be (according to 3Dfx) dishing out an expected 6 million triangles and 286 Megatexels per second. This clock speed 'bump' might well please some of the more concerned entry-level gamers and is slightly (36Megatexels/second) more than the originally specified 250Megatexels/second. Although, just what kind of memory clock speed the Motherboard manufacturers will opt for is, as yet, unclear. When asked about the likelihood of the Voodoo3- 2000 on motherboards, Howse stated "It really depends on them, we are obviously releasing a retail version of that configuration." But why on Earth would 3Dfx Interactive feel the need to increase the clock speed of the memory? Apparently 3Dfx has witnessed an incredibly high yield at 143Mhz and thus they feel the need to give that 'benefit' to the consumer. For the small increase in price they feel it is more than worth it- and they hope consumers do too. For $129 and 16MB SDRAM, one can't really argue can they? Howse also went on to mention that the 2000 would be available in both PCI and AGP flavors with an onboard 300MHz RAMDAC.